Agreeing with Al Sharpton about the Gospel

You read that right! Al Sharpton and I agree about an aspect of the Gospel. There are not many times that Al Sharpton and I fully agree. And since I’ve never heard him preach nor speak clearly about theology this was a suprise to me when I discovered this last night.

There was a story on the local Fox network last night about preaching. The story featured in interview with Creflo Dollar of World Changers Church. I suppose “church” is a very broadly defined term these days. So Fox got an exclusive interview that Creflo, if I remember rightly, has never granted before. The caption of the story goes:

ATLANTA (FOX5) – It’s called the gospel of prosperity. Religious experts said it’s one of the fastest growing ministries in the country, but prosperity gospel and many of those who preach it, are also drawing controversy. Click on video for more information.

Now the interesting thing is that this “gospel” has been growing and, but is just now getting this kind of attention in a major city. I believe Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts and others have been around for a while.

Now let’s turn to Al Sharpton. In a recent interview with Sharpton we read:

Q: Do you think prosperity Gospel has become too popular?

A: “I think prosperity Gospel is not the Gospel. I think the problem the children of Israel had was that when they got in the wilderness they went into the bling bling. That’s why it took them 40 years to get into the Promised Land. I think we need to get out of the golden calf theology and get back to the gospel of Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Moses. That’s why we are lost in the wilderness.”

Wow, finally something I agree with Sharpton on in full, “I think the prosperity Gospel is not the Gospel.”  Sharpton’s interview is mainly political in nature and it’s an interesting read.  His basic position seems to be that political Christians tend to go down the political path of the parties and positions of what ails them.  For example, the white Christians tend to make decision based on the predominate problems in their churches like gay marriage while Sharpton says that black Christians aren’t having gay folks wanting to marry in their churches.  The black churches tend to deal more with things like poverty and education since that plagues them most.  However, the question to Sharpton was put in the context of gay marriage and abortion, yet he didn’t touch the abortion part.  I believe abortion is something that plaques every community whether black or white.  Hey, atleast by letting the children be born they have a chance to be educated and get out of poverty if they were born in it.

Now do Sharpton and Creflo have something in common in all of this?  One of the last things Creflo said in the interview is that as long as someone is being helped and their life is being changed is what counts.  So it seems the motives of both men is to change lives in one way or another.  Creflo by a false Gospel with money at the center and Sharpton by a Gospel of social change with politics at the center with both being supported by their “Gospels” which in essence have the same objective of trying to make peoples’ lives better.  

Now, maybe Jesus is there somewhere, but He certainly doesn’t seem to be at the center.  And without Jesus no matter how you fair materially there can be no real lasting and permanent change in anyone’s life.

Just my observation.

Mark

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