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greater Church of Jesus Christ and less for the narrow-mindedness of the emerging preachers, or the credulity of those who find them worthy cheering.

The abuse of people’s genuine faith and expectation for selfish ends is most disgusting, whether as carried out by unscrupulous politicians or by deceitful religious leaders.

Prosperity gospel as preached today by most of the charismatic preachers can be defined as the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth, and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confession of faith and the “sowing of seed,” carried out through financial or material gifts or, more precisely, offerings.

There is nothing inherently amiss when one teaches the principle of sowing, but it can be safely denied that giving financial offerings in itself can result in miraculous wealth outside the principle of diligent working.

The biblical God does not bless lazy people, neither does he bless sinners, and those going jingoistic about prosperity gospel must get this very clearly.

Zimbabwean Prophet Eubert Angel’s teaching about “miracle cash” might be immensely impressive, but it is logically nonsensical, spiritually unsound, biblically heretical, ethically questionable, economically fraudulent, and theologically weird and, as such, it deserves no respect at all, even among the sinful lot.

The young preacher is one among a legion of youthful preachers crazing it out in the almost diabolical mess we call prosperity gospel today, and to be a cut above the rest the 34-year-old evangelical enthusiast has made numerous unverified and unverifiable claims, like saying he has miraculously planted new bank notes in people’s pockets, has miraculously recharged credits on followers’ mobile phones, or that he has successfully prayed for countless unaccounted for miraculous cash deposits in followers’ bank accounts. Specifically, he recently claimed that he had created and pumped 2,4 million pula (US$300 000) into neighbouring Botswana’s economy.

Right now there is a Facebook picture of Angel and Bev, his prophetess wife, posing with four babies he claims he just raised from the dead.
The deception has just become appalling.

Prosperity teaching cuts across denominations, particularly among the charismatic churches, commonly referred to as Pentecostal.

There is no doubt whatsoever that every decent being must affirm the divinity of God and His miraculous grace and power. In this context the growth of churches and ministries that lead people to expectant faith in the living God and to His supernatural power must always be affirmed and welcomed.

But expectant faith is not the same as desperate faith, just like emotion and commotion do not necessarily constitute God’s presence in a church gathering. Today there seems to be more commotion and emotion than devotion in the churches, if the filmed sermons on the commercialised DVDs are anything to go by. There is just too much screaming and hysterics that we are told is a sign of God’s presence.

When poverty-stricken people and fervent superstitionists are manipulated by untoward preachers into desperate faith we begin to have people gathering in such ridiculous beliefs like saying a preacher will miraculously fill their pockets with cash, or miraculously settle people’s bills through inexplicable electronic payments.

Surely God’s ways are not our ways, but all the same God’s ways are well documented in His word. We must not elevate our irrational works, our gullibility and our foolishness to levels of God’s complexity.

That is simply ridiculous.
The power of the Holy Spirit is evident and indisputable, and it does not necessarily manifest itself by incapacitating people’s bodies so much that they have to fall down each time a preacher lays hands on them, and in this context the often televised mass prayers and healing sessions are not in themselves the absolute indicator of the presence of the power of the Holy Spirit, let alone of God Himself, much as they may be a result of the moving of God’s power in some of the cases.

God’s power is at His discretion and God Himself is not changed by the acts of man, be they anointed or cursed. He is not arm-twisted by human techniques, or manipulated by human words, actions, gifts, objects or rituals. When we fast and pray we are not making God change so He can do what we wish for. All we are doing is afflicting our own bodies as a sign of showing our humbleness.

No doubt there is a biblical vision of human prospering, and that the Bible includes in its teachings material welfare, be it health or wealth. This is all within the teaching about the blessing of God.

However it is simply unbiblical, if not heretic to teach that wealth is always a sign of God’s blessing, or that lack of it is evidence of the absence of God in one’s life. When Prophet Eubert Angel visited Sydney in 2012, he took time to attack those who have questioned his controversial teachings on prosperity, telling the crowd, “If you go and check their bank accounts these people are literally broke.” He went on to chronicle an impressive line-up of luxury vehicles he owns, as if to prove that the vehicles were in themselves the doctrinal proof of the validity of his teachings.

The financial status of a critic does not validate or nullify the merit of their argument, and that is basic knowledge any Bible school would give to a student pastor. Neither does the fatness of Prophet Angel’s bank account authenticate the uprightness of any of his teachings or beliefs.

Wealth itself can often be obtained by oppression, deceit or corruption and, as such, cannot be relied on as a yardstick of one’s commitment to God. Equally poverty, illness or early death, while not God’s will, are not necessarily always a sign of God’s curse, or evidence of lack of faith, or the result of human curses or witchcraft. To teach so would be erroneous. The Bible simply rejects such simplistic explanations, and it is not the wish of this writer to go into Bible verses in the context of this essay.

It is most plausible to exalt the power and victory of God. However, that does and should not license anyone to distort the Bible in the name of furthering the gospel of prosperity. Those whose wealth is a product of God’s blessing are first and foremost citizens of the Kingdom of God before they are counted wealthy. Jesus himself taught His disciples to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven so that all other things would be added unto them, and of course every teaching of the Lord extends to every generation, our own included.

It is of concern that the practices and lifestyles of many of today’s wealthy church founders are evidently unethical and blatantly unChristlike. A church leader whose personal bank account is fatter than that of his church is not worthy the phrase “man of God,” just like a man of God whose vain taste for worldly fashion beats the fashion fanatics of the secular world is not worthy emulating.

There is grave concern with the trend of preachers anointing themselves to all sorts of fancy clergy offices, from self-proclaimed prophets to self-anointed apostles — and someone in Zimbabwe has even officially elevated himself to something he calls “Major Prophet,” whatever that means.
These often egregiously boastful preachers commonly replace genuine evangelism with miracle-seeking and they characteristically replace the call to repentance with the call to give money to the preacher’s organisation — often packaged as “the house of God.”

It is not biblical to teach that miracles are in themselves a vehicle to bring true salvation. True salvation comes through what Jesus called being “born again” — a total transformation that comes through a comprehensive appreciation of God’s teaching through His word, sometimes but not necessarily always aided by the demonstration of God’s power through signs and wonders.

The impact of the teaching of cheap and simplistic prosperity gospel on the greater Church of Jesus Christ has so far been pastorally damaging and spiritually disastrous.

Far from the widely held belief that the seeming popularity of prosperity gospel preachers has enhanced the positive influence of the church in the world, the reality of the matter is that the pastoral office has been grossly adulterated to the point of losing its biblical meaning and significance. To many an average prosperity gospel preacher has become synonymous with a con-artist that preys on the vulnerability of the gullible. That image may be unfortunate, but sadly it has become the widely held reality, and this is precisely why the honour of the church is on the decline.

Prophet Eubert Angel is on record saying those who view him as a con-artist “will get tired.”
Equally those flocking to have their pockets miraculously filled up with “miracle cash” by the illustrious prophet will surely get tired of the third party testimonies and seemingly empty promises.

Surely every initiative carried out in the name of Jesus Christ and seeking to bring healing to the sick or lasting deliverance from poverty and suffering must be strongly affirmed and upheld. Sadly today’s prosperity gospel is no more than a quick-fix approach to the biting challenges of poverty. It does not offer lasting solutions to poverty, apart from it helping immensely in deflecting people from the true message and means of eternal salvation.

This writer’s son says money does not change people; it only reveals them. He might just be a little boy, but it seems he knows a lot better than the prosperity gospel preachers who seem to think people will transform on the basis of amassing wealth.

Wealth-seeking newly born Christians cannot end up miraculously mustering the power of righteousness, and neither will they understand better the message of eternal salvation through the acquisition of wealth, however miraculous. All they will know is to love a wealth-giving God, and of course God is a lot more than a money machine.

Specifically based on the artificiality and carnality of today’s prosperity gospel, the whole crusade can be soberly dismissed as a false gospel, and the peddlers thereof as false teachers — despite some of them styling themselves as prophets of God, or whatever other fancy title they might choose to assume.

Today’s excesses of prosperity teaching are grossly incompatible with sound biblical Christianity, and it is imperative that those truly called by and of God stand resolutely against the prevalence of idolatry of greed. Someone must begin to teach Christians to work hard for their prosperity.

When our people are being indoctrinated into an obsession with a money god that produces “miracle cash” clearly they are being led into vain idol worship. Of course a money god in a country like Zimbabwe is bound to have multitudes of followers. It is like a sun god in the Antarctic, or a rain god in the desert.

Zimbabwe is emerging from a critical economic crisis where the local currency was virtually rendered useless by hyper-inflation and the replacement US dollar has not at all been easy to access.

This is why a cash miracle god can only be appealing to the desperate poverty-stricken masses. But the people of Zimbabwe must truly seek the face of God and humble themselves so that the country can be healed by God Himself. They must not exacerbate the dire situation by allowing themselves to be misled by false teachers into the idolatry of greed.

We cannot stand aside and look while our desperate masses are manipulated for selfish gain.
Those called to preach God’s word have a duty to teach diligent working so that their flocks may take lessons from the hard-working ants as outlined in the book of Proverbs. We have for some time been at the mercy of our unscrupulous politicians, and God forbid that we now fall prey to our religious leaders, let alone those of the Christian faith.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome.

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in Sydney, Australia.