Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 74

If you believe I am against the medical profession, against doctors, against the use of medicine because I believe in the power of prayer and the power of God to heal – you are wrong. Had I chosen a profession, in all probability my choice would have been either medicine or law. But I had no choice: I was called of God to preach the Gospel…

Any truth, no matter how valid, if emphasized to the exclusion of other truths of equal importance, is practical error. My faith in the power of God is the same as that exercised by any physician or surgeon when he believes in the healing and the curing of his patient. He waits for nature (God) to heal gradually, while I believe that God has the ability to heal, not only through a gradual process, but should He so will, His is the ability and the power to heal instantly … I believe that God has the power to heal instantly without the material tools of scientific medicine; but I also believe that God gave us our brains to use! … [So] if you are ill, and have not yet received the gift of faith so that you believe in miracles, then get yourself the best medical assistance possible…

If you believe that I, as an individual, have any power to heal, you are dead wrong. I have nothing to do with any miracle … All I can do is point you to the way – I can lead you to the Great Physician.

Kathryn Kuhlman, I Believe in Miracles (Alachus, FL: Bridge‐Logos, 2006), pp. 1–5.

Obviously, there is tremendous potential for charlatanism within prosperity gospel circles, and some Pentecostal preachers have accumulated massive wealth by collecting seed money from their flocks. Their success is due in part to the fact that Pentecostal Christians really do believe that God wants everyone to enjoy the good things of life. Most Pentecostal churches would advise members to avoid cheap and inappropriate pleasures because such pleasures can bring harm or sorrow in their wake, but pleasure itself is not a problem, nor is wealth. According to the Pentecostal view of the world, God wants people to flourish in every way possible, including financially. Greed is a sin, selfishness is a sin, and pride in one’s wealth can be a sin, but being wealthy is not a sin and it may, in fact, be a blessing from God.

It is important to remember the social context in which most of the world’s Pentecostals live. More than 80 percent of the world’s Pentecostal Christians live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and by almost any measure, most of these individuals are decidedly poor. “Prosperity” for them does not mean two BMWs in the garage and a vacation house at the beach. It means having enough food for today and possibly for tomorrow. It means having a roof that does not leak. It means obtaining a minimal level of education. It means having a job – any kind of job. When the prosperity gospel is transplanted to wealthy cultures it can appear to be nothing more than religiously sanctioned greed, but in most worldwide contexts, to be wealthy means simply not worrying every day about meeting one’s basic human needs for food, shelter, and safety. Most Pentecostals understand how easily prosperity preaching can go awry, but they also genuinely believe that God wants people to prosper. In their view, to squelch the preaching of prosperity would be to deny part of God’s message of salvation.

If there is an Achilles’ heel for the Pentecostal movement and its view of salvation, it is that all the grand promises of Christianity seem to hang by the very slender thread of human faith, and having faith – enough faith to believe in miracles – is a constant struggle in many Pentecostal circles. Lapses in belief or trust are sometimes seen as evidence that one is no longer Spirit‐filled or that one might even have “lost” one’s salvation. Taken to the extreme, these kinds of concerns can result in an almost neurotic fixation on the current vitality of one’s own faith: Is my faith sufficiently fervent to guarantee salvation and God’s continuing blessing? For some, the pressure can become simply too much to bear, and many people have left the movement for that reason. Thus, alongside the ever‐increasing numbers of Pentecostal Christians in the world, there is also a growing contingent of post‐Pentecostal Christians who have exited the movement in search of a less pressure‐packed form of faith.