In previous posts I talked about my financial problems over many years. This inspired me over many years to worry, think and pray in anguish about what was going on.
Since I became a Christian in the late 90’s I felt that the within many churches across the Western World, teaching similar to the prosperity gospel increasingly gained ground. Although this was not a formal adoption of a specific doctrine it was a sense of a gradual seeping into the culture of many churches.
I worked as a teacher in the public education system in London for about 10 years and although I love my job, I was financially no better off after 10 years of teaching than on the day I had started. I felt ashamed and confused, and felt some how I must be at fault. I increasingly blamed myself.
The church I was a member of seemed to offer no real insight or perspective on this. I remember on one occasion I talked to a priest about my financial fears, his reaction was to start laughing and tell me I needed to get married soon.
I took it like a man. Looking back I can’t believe I sat there and let him humiliate me like that, but I was so filled with a sense of personal failure that I didn’t question it.
Recently, a religious sister who I had known for many years expressed anger and incredulity when I tried to explain to her that me and my wife had very little in the way of savings.
For many Christians the idea that you have no money is a sign of your lack of faithfulness to God. They may not formally accept a teaching that says this, but deep down this is what they believe.
I didn’t know what this belief system was called until one day in about 2012 while living in South London. I could hardly bare to listen to the boring, pointless homilies given by priests in the Catholic church anymore so I decided to visit a church in Brixton that had been street preaching.
I went into the church which met in the Roxy cinema. There were very few people there but on the stage was a face I recognised. I had seen him on TV, he was a former Chelsea football player called Gavin Peacock.
Chelsea are one of the richest and most successful football teams in London. Mr Peacock however did not revel or glory in his success or wealth, instead he preached a very sober and sobering gospel. He gave a name to the all pervasive gospel that had taken over Christian thinking, a name I had never heard before, “The Prosperity Gospel”.
There was no drama about the gospel he preached, just a very intelligent, incisive dismantling of this all pervasive gospel. I listened intently.
Everything he said resonated with me. Everything he said made sense. What he said that day rescued me or at least began a long process of me being rescued.
I feel I have witnessed many Christians being trapped by their financial situations and even Christian marriages failing because of the financial pressures put on them.
It is time that the church adopted a concrete Christian teaching on money and wealth that didn’t see wealth as a reward for our faithfulness.
