Faithful Philly Forum

Before coming to work this morning, I saw that a prominent televangelist was going to be featured on a popular morning show under the rubric: “God wants us to be rich.” Creflo Dollar, pastor of the World Changers Church International in Georgia, has been featured on many news stations. Creflo Dollar, like many other televangelists, is an adherent to prosperity theology. Dollar has two jets, two homes, at least one amazing car, and wads of money. Whatever happened to humility?–to helping others? Dollar is a product of his United States context. In this country we are told that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We are told that we can do things on our own: if you believe it, you can achieve it. The sad truth about these statements is that they are untrue. Unlike the proclamation of the constitution, we are not all created equal. One’s social location plays a major role in how one may fare in life. When we announce that God’s goal is that everyone prosper, we are simply not being real.

In recent weeks, Penn students could find members of the “World Mission Society Church of God” walking about the campus to let students know about their beliefs. Such events bring up an interesting talking point: “How are we as Christians to evangelize or to engage in mission?”  One thing I’ve learned is that mission can be or should be synonymous with dialog.  We have to be willing to listen to people and not only listen, but to learn as well.  In doing so, we will find ourselves and our faith enriched.  So often we get caught up trying to teach and preach to everyone, but this is a completely narrow way to go about mission work.  Of course we can still proclaim our beliefs, but we should also keep in mind the validity of the religion of others as well.  One question that I want to end with is offered by Paul Knitter (a professor at Union Theological Seminary), “Does Jesus have to be solely or only in order to be truly?”