I had a brief discussion the other day about the differences between the health & prosperity gospel preachers and emergent preachers. In this case a little knowledge is a dangerous thing I think.
It occurs to me that the primary reason we would criticize the health & prosperity gospel movement (legititmately so) is because it seems primarily motivated by the needs of the culture it is trying to serve rather than the whole message of scripture. It may be a chicken & egg question – which came first the message or the crowd? I mean it seems to me that the movement has developed to a point where it has understood a particular desire in culture and has found aspects of the Word to satiate this need. God can bless you. God will bless you. These blessings often are presented in worldly terms such as health and wealth. It is a presentation of the incomplete truth.
The question I have is simple. Have the various and ever-changing folks who make up the indefinable movement (very post-modern) called the emerging church by some done anything different from the prosperity gospel folks? Is the emerging church a movement of people who, like the health & prosperity gospel folks, have first and foremost tapped into a cultural need within a certain demographic and have found a set of scriptural interpretations that meet that need? I know where I would align myself if I were given only these two options however this is not the point. The point is where do we find a complete and compelling presentation of truth (Jesus Christ) today?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer predicted that the church of the 21st century would likely become a remnant forced into the role of safe-guarding truth until culture was ready to hear it again, in its uncompromised form. If churches and denominations are the God blessed human institutions created to assist in diseminating truth to the world perhaps they all fall into the same category as the health & prosperity gospel and the emergent forms. Are we all offering incomplete pictures of Christ, incomplete truth modelled more after the cultures we are in (or come from in the case of the more traditional)? Do we learn the needs of the culture and then force Christ into that or do we bring the compelling Christ to culture and allow Him to speak contextually to that culture?
No answers, just questions to ponder.
Harnessing Chaos 
Hello sir, I found my way here and I find this a very interesting "ponder" you have. I had never thought of what "picture" of Christ we, the church, are presenting to the lost world. I can understand how this could be very true. In that churches today are seemingly having to "compete" for membership. Well maybe I have not given the correct wording…however in reaching the lost we think we must find new and better ways to reach them. So we try to find ways to make the Gospel speak to todays culture. Maybe there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that if the scripture itself is not changed in the process. If we look at the example of Christ his message was simple and it appealed to the culture of His day. But He never compromised the truth…which is what the Health & Prosperity messages we hear today do. Not only must we reach the lost but we must also counteract the messages that are grossly exaggerated. Thank you for sharing this, I appreciate it very much. Grace to you Shell13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of
the fulness of Christ: 14That
we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16From
whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which
every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of
itself in love.Ephesians 4:13-16
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