Preaching a Gospel of Wealth in a Glittery Market, New York
It is time to pass the offering buckets at World Changers Church New York, and Troy and Cheryal Anderson are eager to give the Lord his due. They wave their blue offering envelope overhead, as all around them worshipers whoop and holler their praises to God.
The Rev. Creflo A. Dollar Jr. teaches "total life prosperity."
Inside the envelope is 10 percent of the weekly pay Mr. Anderson takes home as an electrician's apprentice - he earns about $30,000 a year - and a little more for the church's building fund.
The Andersons, who live in the Bronx, are struggling financially. A few weeks ago, the couple, who have two young children, had no money to buy groceries. But they believe what their pastor, the Rev. Creflo A. Dollar Jr., said on this recent Saturday night about the offering time: "It's opportunity for prosperity."
"Remember," said Mr. Dollar, a familiar figure across the country because of his "Changing Your World" television show and best-selling books, "if you sow a seed on a good ground, you can expect a harvest."
Mr. Dollar, whose Rolls-Royces, private jets, million-dollar Atlanta home and $2.5 million Manhattan apartment, furnish proof to his followers of the validity of his teachings, is a leading apostle of what is known as the "prosperity gospel."
It is a theology that is excoriated in many Christian circles but is becoming increasingly visible in this country, according to religious scholars. Now, it is beginning to establish a foothold in New York City, where capitalism has long been religion.
Mr. Dollar - his real name - is the most prominent among a host of prosperity preachers that have put down roots in the city. He is quick to insist that he warns Christians to "love God, not money" and teaches "total life prosperity," meaning prosperity not only in finances but in everything from health to family life.
"Money by itself cannot define prosperity," Mr. Dollar said in a recent phone interview. "When you say, 'prosperity,' people think money. They are not incorrect, but they are incomplete."
Asking the faithful to donate is a part of virtually all religions. Outside of Christianity, Muslims pay zakat, and Jewish synagogues have membership dues. Conservative Protestants see tithing - offering a portion, usually a tenth, of one's income back to God and the church - as a biblical mandate.
Many Catholic churches suggest that tithing be divided between the local church and a charity of their choice. Most teach that believers can trust God to take care of their needs.
It is the connecting of religious faithfulness, especially in giving, to material riches that causes many Christians, including other evangelicals, to accuse prosperity teachers of verging on heresy.
"There's no question that almost every Christian leader - reformed, Pentecostal, however you want to call it - sees it as a blight on the face of Christianity," said Timothy C. Morgan, deputy managing editor at Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine. "Yet it's so seductive."
The theology taps into the country's self-help culture, said William C. Martin, a professor emeritus of religion and public policy at Rice University in Houston. "One of the goals of America is for you to become prosperous," he said. "For the church to put a blessing on that and say, 'God wants you to be rich,' is quite appealing."
While prosperity preachers were largely discredited in this country in the late 1980's with the rash of scandals involving religious broadcasters, the booming television ministries of a coterie of new prosperity kings, including Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn and Mr. Dollar, demonstrates its staying power. Mr. Dollar, 41, a former college football player, started World Changers Church in Atlanta in an elementary school cafeteria in 1986.
The church now has almost 25,000 members, according to church officials.
But New York City is Mr. Dollar's largest television market. And just over a year ago, Mr. Dollar began flying up from Atlanta to preach at Saturday night services in the theater at Madison Square Garden. Membership at World Changers Church New York is now at more than 5,000, church officials said.
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