The Gospel of Jesus and Money

Undergraduate / Graduate

Tell me what you think about money, and I will tell you what you think about God, for these two are closely related. A man's heart is closer to his wallet than anything else" - Billy Graham For many Christians in the contemporary world globalized through capitalism, the Pentecostal gospel of prosperity's promise of a socially fulfilling and abundant life in this-worldly realm has been quite appealing. In contrast to the earlier movements of Christianity where the good life was promised as a reward in the hereafter, the prosperity message (also called the "health and wealth gospel"), combines salvation with material comfort. This "Jesus plus money" approach indicates a pragmatic understanding of secular power as inextricable from salvation if Christianity would truly expand the sphere of social possibilities for believers. In this course, we will examine the contexts and contingencies that gave rise to this conflation of Jesus with wealth and power in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, critically exploring how this this-worldly gospel has transformed Christianity in various locales where its growth has exploded. Students will study several socio-cultural and socio-political contexts where the prosperity gospel has thrived. By the end of the semester, they would have developed a coherent understanding of the allure of the prosperity gospel, adaptions of the Cross to capitalism, and what the trend portends for the Christian faith as a global practice.