While these are the extreme views there are also views that should be more familiar to those of us who are urban North American evangelicals. On the one hand, there is what I would call, Christian conservatism. Those of us who hold to this view are tempted to look at the homeless among us or the brother or sister who is struggling financially or is out of work and conclude that that such brothers and sisters are simply not faithful. They must be wasting their money. They must be lazy. They must just be irresponsible. For these people, being poor is the mark of a bad Christian and being middle-class is a mark of being a good Christian. This perspective is suspiciously similar to the pull-yourself-up-by-your-boots-straps individualism of political conservatism. The result is that middle-class-ness becomes akin to godliness.
On the other side, there’s the view I call, radical Christianity. Often a response to Christian conservatism, radical Christianity emerges from Christians who grew up in middle-class homes, became disillusioned by what they perceived as worldliness and hypocrisy in their home churches and their Christian families, and therefore decided that, even though they are university educated, academically gifted, and have lots of opportunities, they were called by God to intentionally live in the worst neighbourhoods in town, to abandon career paths to work at McDonalds, and to urge other Christians to do likewise lest they waste their lives and ruin the Church’s witness.
Perhaps this simply reflects my own experience, but these two views appear to be popular perspectives on prosperity: Christian conservatism and radical Christianity. But what does the Bible say? What does God think of prosperity? And with that question in mind, let’s turn to Ecclesiastes 5:8-20.
