Does the church suffer from prosperity?
McKinley-Theodore Roosevelt "Prosperity" Metal Elephant Coin Bank, ca. 1900 (Photo credit: Cornell University Library ) Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God , who gives us richly all things to enjoy.— 1 Timothy 6:17 We in the churches seem unable to rise above the fiscal philosophy which rules the business world; so we introduce into our church finances the psychology of the great secular institutions so familiar to us all and judge a church by its financial report much as we judge a bank or a department store . A look into history will quickly convince any interested person that the true church has almost always suffered more from prosperity than from poverty. Her times of greatest spiritual power have usually coincided with her periods of indigence and rejection; with wealth came weakness and backsliding. If this cannot be explained, neither apparently can it be escaped. . . . The poi