[Another in the series of “Responding to Bumper Stickers,” or “Long Answers to Short Questions,” in which I try to give a Latter-day Saint response to a question or accusation commonly lobbed against us on X.]
This isn’t the most common criticism, but it does come up every now and then. The accusation is that Latter-day Saints believe some version of the “prosperity gospel,” the idea (according to Wikipedia) “that financial blessing and physical well-being are always the will of God for them, and that faith, positive scriptural confession, and giving to charitable and religious causes will increase one’s material wealth. Material and especially financial success is seen as evidence of divine grace or favor and blessings, and the opposite, that of judgment.” Joel Osteen is probably the most famous proponent of this.
I don’t know exactly where this one come from, but my guess is a combination of these three factors:
- Latter-day Saints will often thank God for material blessings.
- The leaders of the Church are often successful.
- The Book of Mormon repeats frequently God’s promises to the Nephites that by obedience they will “prosper in the land.”
Taking them each in turn:
1. Latter-day Saints will often thank God for material blessings.
I mean, it’s true, but it’s not the whole story. We thank God for ANY blessing — good health, an employment opportunity, being in the right place to help a friend… And quite often, the thing that we’ll thank God most profoundly for isn’t inordinate blessings in any area, but the avoidance of disaster: that the accident wasn’t (more) serious, that a job was found to support one’s family, etc.
I live in a lower-middle-class area, and I don’t think anyone in the congregation thinks they must of necessity be less beloved of God (or demonstrably less righteous) than Church members with larger houses. And while our local leaders — our bishops, our stake presidents — are usually people with fairly stable lives and livelihoods who won’t be tempted to misuse Church funds, it’s not a matter of “whoever earns most is the most Godly.” My current bishop is a software programmer for a company that works on the Air Force Base. The one before him was a retired schoolteacher. The one before him was a project manager for a hospital system. The one before him was a retired firefighter. The one before him was a middle school art teacher. The one before him was a copier repairman…
Now, occasionally you’ll hear some high-profile Latter-day Saint — I’m thinking of Glenn Beck specifically — say something that might be construed as “I joined the Church, and my career turned around.” And that could certainly be true (I’m not privy to God’s counsels for anyone else’s life). But I think that even Beck would interpret it as once he dedicated his life to God, God put him in a place where he could make a difference, not that God rewarded him with money.
2. The leaders of the Church are often successful.
This is often true, but beside the point. Rather than any material success being a consequence of righteousness (or even worse, their position in the Church being a consequence of material success), the same traits which made them (moderately) successful in their secular pursuits are the same ones that make them useful to God in stewarding His kingdom. After all, while we claim that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are called of God and are pretty darned Christlike, we don’t claim that they’re absolutely the MOST Christlike people in the whole church; instead, we see them as being both very good people AND possessing the necessary skills and experience to help manage a worldwide organization of seventeen billion people, whom God has called to their positions to be able to build the kingdom. I know many people who are positively beatific but are not good administrators; I have no problem with the idea the men that God calls to lead His church would be ones who would be able to use the skills they’ve already acquired to build the kingdom, any more than I have a problem with the local organist being called because he already knows how to play the organ.
Just for details’ sake, here are the secular positions of the members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles immediately prior to being called to full-time service for the church:
- Dallin H. Oaks: Justice of the Utah Supreme Court
- Henry B. Eyring: President of Ricks College
- D. Todd Christofferson: Associate general counsel of NationsBank Corporation
- Dieter F. Uchtdorf: Senior vice president for flight operations at Lufthansa German Airlines
- David A. Bednar: President of Ricks College
- Quentin L. Cook: Vice chairman of Sutter Health System
- Neil L. Andersen: Vice president of Morton Plant Health System
- Ronald A. Rasband: President and chief operating officer of Huntsman Chemical Corporation
- Gary E. Stevenson: President and chief operating officer of ICON Health & Fitness, Inc.
- Dale G. Renlund: Professor of medicine at the University of Utah
- Gerrit W. Gong: Assistant to the president of Brigham Young University
- Ulisses Soares: Auditor and accountant for Pirelli Tire Company
- Patrick Kearon: Owner/operator of a communications and public affairs consultancy
- Gérald Caussé: General manager of Pomona
- Clark G. Gilbert: President of BYU–Pathway Worldwide
3. The Book of Mormon repeats frequently God’s promises to the Nephites that by obedience they will “prosper in the land.”
This one even has the word “prosper” in it!
And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper… (1 Nephi 2:20)
But might I humbly suggest that just because the word “prosper” is used, that doesn’t make it the same as the solely material abundance that the “prosperity gospel” refers to?
Look at some examples:
And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.
And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. (1 Nephi 2:20-21)
And he hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; but inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. (2 Nephi 1:20)
For the Lord God hath said that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land; and inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence. (2 Nephi 4:4)
Behold, do ye not remember the words which he spake unto Lehi, saying that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land? And again it is said that: Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. (Alma 9:13)
But behold, my son, this is not all; for ye ought to know as I do know, that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land; and ye ought to know also, that inasmuch as ye will not keep the commandments of God ye shall be cut off from his presence. Now this is according to his word. (Alma 36:30)
Blessed art thou and thy children; and they shall be blessed, inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. But remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. (50:20)
I think that’s a good sampling.
As you can see, the common association all through the Book of Mormon is:
- keep the Lord’s commandments: prosper in the land
- keep not the commandments: cut off from the presence of the Lord
There’s more here than a simple material prosperity; being prosperous is contrasted directly from being cut off. Prosperity, more than anything else, is the blessing of being in union with God.
It’s also worth noting that the promise isn’t to individuals — “If you obey me, I’ll make you rich” — but to the church or people as a whole — “If you ALL will obey me, you ALL will prosper.”
Frankly, I don’t know how much of that is God’s active blessing and how much is simple cause and effect: If a society lives with honesty and decency and righteousness and unselfishness, if they live with the intent to care for and love their neighbors, then the rising tide will lift all boats; if a society becomes ridden with selfishness and greed, forgetting God in the quest for material gain, then the society will falter as a whole.
In fact, the Book of Mormon prophets specifically warn against using material gain as a sign of God’s favor:
And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they. (Jacob 2:13)
Yea, wo shall come unto you because of that pride which ye have suffered to enter your hearts, which has lifted you up beyond that which is good because of your exceedingly great riches! (Helaman 7:26)
Behold ye, the people of this great city, and hearken unto my words; yea, hearken unto the words which the Lord saith; for behold, he saith that ye are cursed because of your riches, and also are your riches cursed because ye have set your hearts upon them, and have not hearkened unto the words of him who gave them unto you. (Helaman 13:21)
Whereas some other examples show prosperity in other terms:
And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land; yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger… (Alma 48:15)
Prosperity is protection.
And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely. (Alma 1:27)
Prosperity is sufficiency.
I think this puts paid to the idea that Latter-day Saints subscribe to the warped “prosperity gospel,” that a person’s favor with God will be obviously and publicly exhibited by that person’s material wealth. Riches are not in themselves evil; they are a tool to do good. But when riches become an end in themselves — and worse, when people judge that they must be better than other people because they are rich… Absolutely not.