For I know how to have much, and how to deal with having little. I have learned the secret of contentment in all circumstances, whether well fed or being hungry, whether having plenty or being in want.

Phil. 4:12

What does a life lived by faith in the Triune God look like? This is an increasingly crucial question in a world of competing ideas about what it means to be a follower of Jesus – a world that becomes both more secular and more randomly spiritual at every new point of inspection. The prevailing view of most moderns is that which has always characterized a rejection of biblical truth: We are the arbiters, the foundation layers, the builders of our own destiny. The idea of God is a construct that mostly interferes with human progress and self-realization. This is, unfortunately, a philosophy that (in a less virulent form) infects too many who identify themselves as Christians, putting them at odds with one of the fundamental tenets of orthodox theology, which is that the true God is sovereign, unique, holy, and alone worthy of trust, obedience, and worship.

Among the foolish falsehoods that entice the churches are the several variants of the “faith movement.” FM teaching posits the view that we can have a trouble-free life through believing and confessing the good things that we want to have or experience. If our daily existence doesn’t demonstrate material well-being, whether in the realm of financial or physical health, it means we are suffering one or both of two deficiencies. The first is that we simply have not conjured enough faith to connect ourselves to divine blessings. The second is that we are simply not recipients of God’s favor. Either way, we are excluded from the ranks of the elect, the saved.

Either of these distortions – OK, heresies – express the scourge of Darwinist religion (my term). With its origins in 18th and 19th century philosophy – most of which involves twisting certain ideas from Reformed theology – Darwinist religion posits that spiritual well-being and material prosperity go hand-in-hand. It’s not that one begets the other. Rather, they are both signs of being one of God’s elect. Most crucially, wealth and health are the truest sign of being chosen for inclusion in the kingdom.

The effects of such thinking are wide-ranging. They touch economics, politics, family and other relationships, Christian mission and outreach – pretty much every sphere of human life. Faith movement teaching enriches some and impoverishes others. It especially allows preachers of its message to gain an advantage over those whom they exploit. Among the “other gospels” against which Paul cautions us (Gal. 1:8) it is at least near the top of the list of baneful, pernicious doctrines that confuse and lead astray so many of God’s people.

Faith movement practitioners obviously go to the Bible to find sources for their message. Instead of analyzing the verses that proponents use for proof, it will be a good deal easier to consider the man who warned us about false gospels in the first place. Does his life (or the lives of men and women like him) demonstrate the validity of spiritual Darwinism? I’m not sure that we need more than a handful of essential biblical statements to show that the assertions of the “prosperity gospel” are patently false.

Indeed, for the sake of Christ, I am content with hardships, with sufferings, with weakness, with persecutions, with insults. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10).

For I know how to have much, and how to deal with having little. I have learned the secret of contentment in all circumstances, whether well fed or being hungry, whether having plenty or being in want (Phil. 4:12).

Keep yourselves free from the love of money … because God has said that he will never leave nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5).

A person’s life does not consist of the abundance of possessions (Luke 12:15)

The many scriptural admonitions, which the early church modeled for the first 300+ years of its existence (until the “conversion” of the Emperor Constantine) are suitable rebukes to any idea that we may measure our standing with God and his kingdom by any of the worldly standards of success or material blessing. If the faith movement has any legitimacy, then Jesus, Paul, Steven, Timothy (whose weak faith meant that he had to drink wine for his “frequent stomach troubles”), the men and women of Rome, Lyon, Carthage, and other sites of persecution were “indeed the most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). Should we discount the suffering of centuries of saints as the embodiment of inadequate belief in God and his promises? Or is it more that they demonstrate the authentic trust and hope that attend the reality of a world that awaits its full redemption at the return of Jesus?

For those who regularly read this blog, I assume that all of this is obvious. We don’t cotton to the idea that faith is the guaranteed play of a slot machine coin. We understand that being poor is not a sign of God’s displeasure, any more than being wealthy is a n incontrovertible mark of belonging to his kingdom. But I don’t believe we should think ourselves immune to some effects of the faith movement After all, it’s not like such ideas are new or unique to our age. They are, at most, merely an evolved species of human self-regard.

So as we think critically about the faith movement, it’s important for us to consider where its tentacles may have put the squeeze on our own lives. I believe that there are signs that would warn us that we are in the grasp of the prosperity gospel, even if we are not proponents of its message. And there are equally marks of genuine trust in God that shine in the midst of the false darkness of our age.

So today we take note of the existence of a baneful doctrine, but only in a way that would open our eyes to our own vulnerabilities to its attractions.

Which we will consider next time …

Until then, may the Father give us his gift of faith that endures through every blessing, every trial, and every circumstance.