Nov12 Written by:Kayle
11/12/2009 4:12 AM
In our discipleship groups, we’ve been talking about what a spiritual Christian looks like here in Zimbabwe. The answer was so fascinating to me. One of the girls said that in the “Health and Wealth” gospel, a spiritual person, a faith filled believer, is one who has wealth, health, and good things happening to them all around. If you don’t have material possessions or haven’t been healed from something, then you haven’t trusted God enough or perhaps you’ve even sinned. If you compare this to African Traditional beliefs, one who prospers means that the ancestors are blessing and favoring them, but one who does not prosper means that the ancestors are angry with them. So I can understand how the Health and Wealth gospel has really taken off here because it generally fits in with traditional beliefs. However, my other student told me that in her church, Brethren in Christ, a truly spiritual person is one who has little and suffers. Their pastors are never paid well and are to suffer and work hard for their food. The thinking here is that wealth corrupts and they want to know that their pastor is truly preaching the gospel out of pure motivations. Besides how can the pastor be wealthy when there are poor people in the church? In both extremes, it is MONEY that defines a truly spiritual person: whether a poor struggling Christian or a wealthy prospering Christian. How sad and twisted is this? The sum of a spiritual Christian is defined by his bank account, for better or for worse! We talked about how a truly spiritual Christian is defined by one’s life, character and actions. How one uses their money is a sign of the spiritual state of one’s heart, but one’s spiritual state is not based on whether they have money or not. Oh how this makes me so sad for the state of the church here in Zimbabwe and the petty things that concern us and consume us in the church. Guess that’s why we’re here…
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