(OPINION) Southern Baptists adopted a resolution Tuesday rejecting the prosperity gospel, calling it false teaching and distortion of Scripture, particularly regarding Jesus Christ’s atoning work on the cross.
Assembled in Anaheim, California, this week for the denomination’s annual meeting, messengers passed Resolution 2, which defines the prosperity gospel as the belief that “Jesus’ sacrificial and atoning death grants believers health, wealth and the removal of sickness and poverty.”
According to the Christian Post, The resolution declares that this theology represents a distortion of “biblical generosity,” exploits vulnerable people and blames people who are sick for lack of faith while corrupting a biblical understanding of suffering.
The resolution asserts that Christians are to “guard against false teaching, to beware of false prophets who come to us in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves, and to guard the integrity of Scripture.”
Speaking from the stage during the debate on resolutions, J.T. English, a pastor of Storyline Church in Arvada, Colorado, said the convention has never before spoken formally on the issue. “We’ve never spoken clearly as a body clearly about the prosperity gospel in the form of a resolution,” English said.
A Louisiana pastor motioned from the floor to amend the language in the definition of “prosperity gospel,” to remove “and sickness and poverty” and add “of suffering, sickness, and poverty,” given how the removal of suffering is tethered to the prosperity gospel. The amended language was accepted and seen as a helpful clarification. The amendment was approved with unanimous consent.
An amendment was also offered from the floor to add “and New Age beliefs and practices” to each section denouncing the prosperity gospel because it is tied to the idea that God “wants us to be happy and healthy and wealthy on this earth.” Critics contend the idea employs a pagan ideology to see those things come into being.
