Job and The Prosperity Gospel

The mission of The Sage Forum is to encourage, equip, and empower women over 40 to mature in faith and grow in wisdom. We send out a newsletter at the beginning of each month focusing on a different theme relevant to women in the second half of life.

Today’s Sage Forum Extra! is a short mid-month reflection meant to offer you a word of encouragement. Today’s Extra! is penned by Sage Forum contributor Michelle Van Loon. Learn more about Michelle by visiting her website.

“But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state.” –Job 8:5-6

Sometimes I will channel-surf when I find myself wide awake at 3:30 AM. (Sages, lots of empathy for you from me because I know many of you find yourself awake at that early hour, too!) Every once in a while, I will pause to watch a few minutes of the broadcasts of various televangelists. It doesn’t matter who the preacher is, the message is always the same: God will bless you financially (or with healing, improved relationships, or maybe a pony) if you donate to their ministry. If you want a bigger blessing, give a bigger gift. If you never cracked a Bible, your viewing might convince you that the Good News was primarily about money and worldly success - the American Dream gilded in spiritual-sounding language.

While many of us may think we’re immune at this point of our lives to these kinds of overt expressions of what is known as the Prosperity Gospel, this kind of belief system can shape our faith journey in more subtle ways. We buy parenting books in search of a formula that promise to help us raise happy, well-adjusted children. We listen to sermon series with titles like “Six Steps to a Successful Life”. We attend Christian workshops and seminars in search of the key that unlock financial security or vocational advancement. We follow the unwritten rules of our faith community (which can include anything from acceptable dress to relationships with “outsiders” to voting preferences) in order to gain the blessings of secure belonging.

Certainly some of these things can be supportive tools as we seek to grow in wisdom. But many of us internalize the idea that if we follow a spiritual sounding formula, we can expect an upgrade in our circumstances. You give (or do) to get something from God. It turns faith into a sort of transaction. Call it Prosperity Gospel Lite.

This is not a modern idea. The book of Job highlights various applications of the idea that all the bad things that happen to us are a result of our moral failure–of not following a formula. Taken in isolation, the words of Job’s comforter-judges Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, and Elihu actually sound pretty sensible. They call Job, who lost just about everything in a series of devastating losses, to examine his life and repent. Bildad’s words in Job 8:5-6 (quoted above) sound like sane advice, don’t they? It is obvious to Job’s friends that Job brought his suffering on himself. If Job had only done “A” (or “B”, “C” or “Z”), he would be living his best, blessed life.

God never reveals to Job the reasons for Job’s incredible suffering (see Job 1:1-2:8, 38-41). The book offers a stark rebuttal to the Prosperity Gospel in all its forms. Instead, it reminds us that faith can not be expressed in transactional form. Expecting a reward if we color in the lines or follow a specific formula shrinks the eternal God to our size. Despite all he has lost, Job has a much larger vision of God. He tells his comforters: “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.” (Job 28:28) Despite his harrowing circumstances, Job reverenced God simply because of who God is, not what God might do for him.

The book of Job has themes with which many of us may resonate, especially as we move into midlife and beyond and discover that our Prosperity Gospel Lite assumptions about the way faith “should” work do not answer the hard questions that come with losses, suffering, and death. It is true that God hears every one of our prayers, and loves us more than we can imagine, but the book of Job reminds us that we will not receive the answers to all those hard questions we carry in this life. But learning to wrestle with them can begin to help us move beyond Prosperity Gospel Lite toward mature, grounded faith.

For further reflection: How has the Prosperity Gospel (or the Prosperity Gospel Lite) shaped your own faith? What do you make of the fact that God does not explain Himself to a faithful man like Job?

To pray: Father, through your Spirit for the glory of your Son, please reveal to me the areas of my faith that are transactional in nature - those places I give or do in order to obtain a blessing. Help me to reverence you when those blessings disappear. Amen.