The “prosperity gospel,” as critics call it, is growing highly prominent megachurches and has blacks divided on the controversial message.
Dr. Frederick K.C. Price speaks during an evening session at the Vision 2007 conference held at the Christian Faith Center in Seattle on Friday March 9, 2007. (Photo: Christian Faith Center / File)
While the nation's largest African American religious organization – the 7.5 million-member National Baptist Convention – has clearly denounced the prosperity gospel especially with many black communities suffering in poverty, tens of thousands of black Christians flock to services every week to hear the message of wealth and abundance.
"God gives us power to get wealth. Does that sound like he wants you to be on welfare? That's in the Bible!" the Rev. Frederick K.C. Price, pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles, told Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Current membership at Crenshaw is reported to be over 18,000.
"I am one of the very few ministers that are very open, very, very open, because I don't have anything to hide," Price said. "And I do it – I tell my people here all the time, 'I'm only doing it so that you can see that there's somebody the same color that you are, breathing the same contaminated air, paying the same outrageous prices for everything else, and I'm prospering because of the Book.'"
Price recently filed a lawsuit against ABC over a March airing on the network's 20/20 program that he says inaccurately portrayed him as living a lavish lifestyle, including a mansion, a yacht and seven luxury automobiles. The lawsuit claims the TV show, which upset Price's congregation, severely damaged his reputation.
Another preacher of prosperity, Bishop Eddie Long, celebrated the 20th anniversary of his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., just last week.
In addition to claiming 25,000 members, the Atlanta-area megachurch has TV ministries, a fitness center, a school, and a program for the homeless and addicted.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Long lives “in affluence and preaches a gospel that mixes the prosperity of American capitalism with a conservative theology that says God blesses people financially as well as spiritually.”
A nonprofit started by Long and his church provided him more than $3 million in salary and benefits between 1997 and 2000, as revealed by nonprofit records obtained by the Journal-Constitution.
Since then, Long's salary and benefits have not been divulged.
Recognizing the rise in prosperity messages in more black pulpits, Dr. Robert M. Franklin, author of recently released Crisis in the Village, has called the prosperity gospel movement the single greatest threat to the historical legacy and core values of the contemporary black church tradition.
Several megapastors preaching abundance are under fire for what one author and national talk show host says is "deceiving true believers" for fame and fortune.
In the upcoming self-published book Snakes in the Pulpit, talk show host Reuben Armstrong blasts T.D. Jakes, Eddie Long, Creflo Dollar and Joel Osteen, calling them "false prophets."
"Really look at our churches today," said Armstrong in a video statement. "Ask yourself, 'Are churches really concerned about saving your soul or are they concerned about your money, your pocketbooks?'"
