"Praise the Lord and pass the business plan as God embraces Mammon": a prophecy of the pissing off of Pentecostals by today's Guardian article.

The article in question, subtitled "Pentecostalist gathering draws worshippers with get-rich philosophy", and written by Robert Booth, is online here.

Basically, it's an expose of the dire materialism and cringe-inducing prosperity-gospelness of the International Gathering of Champions "Empowered to Prosper conference" and of the Kingsway International Christian Centre, who are running the event. The reporting about the KICC is probably fair journalism. But the implication that all such churches and all such over-involvement with money is typical of Pentecostalists (I assume he means Pentecostals) is, I think, slightly misjudged, inaccurate and destined to outrage.

Pentecostalism began in early 20th Century America as a way of reigniting the power which came down on the early Church from the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost, and of harnessing that power to liberate and transform every sphere of each person's life. So whereas there's an emphasis on God doing miraculous and very practical things - bringing healing, restoring families and relationships, arranging jobs, marriages and pregnancies - it's also about developing very individual, personal, ecstatic, emotional, intimate relationships with God. Given that God is so involved and immersed in the minutae of everyday life, then God must be concerned with an individual's financial situation. But, within mainstream Pentecostalism, money is only one apsect of a holistic bigger picture.

The clue to how, within the article, the fallacy may have arisen, is the author's implication (though, to be fair, not an assertion) that Pentecostalism began in Oklahoma. What began in Oklahoma was the whole word-faith, seed-faith, prosperity-gospel millieu. With Kenneth Hagin in Tulsa and then in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to be precise, though its roots go back much further and broader than that. What word-faith teaches is that, seeing as we are healed by the wounds of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5, far removed from its original meaning) and given that God has promised us anything we ask for in his name (John 14:3, used entirely out of context) then all believers have the right to demand of God perfect health and limitless financial prosperity. Which is all entirely materialistic, but again, not entirely about the money. Mostly, but not entirely.

So I'll be interested to read what the KICC, and what some of the many un-financially-obsessed Pentecostals have to say about the Guardian article...