In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King wrote: “In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.”  I wish the tax-exempt status of prosperity ministries were my only concern, but I also am concerned that the social impact of these ministries extends far beyond mouthing pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.

Georgetown University professor and ordained minister Michael Eric Dyson recently explained the prosperity message this way: “The civil rights movement said you are responsible for your brother and sister; you ought to bring them along.  The prosperity gospel says your brother or sister is responsible for him or herself, and what they should be doing is praying right so God can bless them, too.”  In light of what they are taught, I wonder whether prosperity congregants are less likely to perform community service, support charitable causes financially, or support social services than their counterparts in other churches.  If so, the impact of their message is far from irrelevant or trivial.