Prosperity Gospel and the Specter of Death -

[Just John]

I don't know much about this person. She is an Assn't Prof of Religion at Duke Divinity School and a writer for the NY Times. You would think "liberal" right off but yet she penned a very good article in the NYT.  She spent 10 years researching a book about the prosperity "gospel" including going to many, many such megachurches, healing services and a trip to Israel with Benny.

But just several months ago, at age 35, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She explores the so common use today of the word "blessed" and shares poignant yet inspirational thoughts about "certainty" and "guarantees" offered by prosperity gospel versus total surrender to God.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?_r=0

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Definitely worth reading. 

 

[praise_yeshua]

The prosperity gospel holds to this illusion of control until the very end. If a believer gets sick and dies, shame compounds the grief. Those who are loved and lost are just that ? those who have lost the test of faith. In my work, I have heard countless stories of refusing to acknowledge that the end had finally come. An emaciated man was pushed about a megachurch in a wheelchair as churchgoers declared that he was already healed. A woman danced around her sister?s deathbed shouting to horrified family members that the body can yet live. There is no graceful death, no ars moriendi, in the prosperity gospel. There are only jarring disappointments after fevered attempts to deny its inevitability.