Episode 371: Temptations of the Church, Part Five--Prosperity Gospel

In their ongoing series for Lent 2024, pastors Erica, Sarah, and Steve continue to look at temptations the church faces in our modern-day experience.  And this time we'll explore the temptation to fall for prosperity theology, or what is sometimes called the "health-and-wealth-gospel."  And we'll see what's missing in this approach to the faith, as tempting and popular as it might be (and as much as we might wish that the world could be simplified down to a system where good behavior or strong faith automatically is rewarded with material success or prosperity).  We'll explore how a faith that is centered on the cross of Jesus and the calling away from "cheap grace" will also mean we say "No" to the thinking of the prosperity gospel, no matter how many books it may sell or how many megachurches may lean on it.  We'll discover, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it, that real grace is costly, because it will cost us our lives, but it is grace because it gives us the only true life there really is.