I happened across this article on salon.com that takes Oprah’s latest psecudo-spiritual schlock to task. It appears that she’s jumped on the bandwagon of people following a book called The Secret that’s cribbed from the Word of Faith movement people but put a secular slant on it.

Now I’ve never been a fan of Oprah, and this is one of the reasons why. For a person who has the power to deeply impact such a large audience, she displays an incredible lack of intellectual responsibility. It seems like time and time again these ridiculous fads crop up on her show or on her book list. It’s almost as if she’s the gatekeeper for what her watchers will accept but doesn’t actually do any rigorous gate-keeping. In fact, it appears that she’s set herself up on top of the “pyramid scheme” this time, as it were. I suggest you read the article first for more information, then come back here.

There was one quote from the book that caught my attention, and I’d like to go over it in depth in this post, if you’ll allow me. Here it is:

“Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of.”

This line of thinking seems like something that has no doubt come out of the Health-and-Wealth-gospel circles, but with it from such a fresh source I can’t help but respond. Let’s consider each of these in turn.

1. Abraham

Abraham is a person whom we can consider, at some points of his life, to be well-off. He had a lot of cattle and herds, silver, gold, many servants, and a generally large household. But why was it that he was so enriched? The story of Abram starts out while he is still in his father Terah’s house in Haran, where they have settled halfway in their journey from Ur to Canaan. It is there that God says to him:

Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. (Gen. 12:1-3)

When Abram left Haran he had “possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran” (v. 5). So he’s done OK for himself, but it is God who comes to him and promises to make him great. Abram, as far as we know, had no intention whatsoever to leave for Canaan. It was God’s promise of blessing that started Abram on his journey to be a great nation. It doesn’t appear that Abraham had any idea of doing this himself, though the fact that he wasn’t an ascetic shows he was open to the possibility. To state it plainly: Abraham didn’t think his fortunes into existence, God promised them to him and fulfilled that promise, as we’ll see.

What’s the next instance we see Abram gaining wealth? On his way to Canaan he’s in the Negev and there’s a famine so he goes down to Egypt. He thinks that because his wife Sarai is beautiful, the Egyptians will kill him and take her for themselves, so he pre-empts them and introduces her as his sister. Pharaoh takes a fancy to Sarai and takes her into his house and “[t]herefore he treated Abram well for her sake; and gave him sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels.” Remember that wealth was equated with livestock in those times.

So it wasn’t through positive thinking that Abram received possessions from Pharaoh, instead he was engaged in really negative thinking. He was merely trying to save his own skin (“I don’t wanna die!”), and he happens to profit through that. “Hey, bonus!” Interestingly enough a similar sequence of events takes place between Abram, who is then called Abraham, and Abimilech, king of Gerar. Except in this case Abimilech gives Abraham livestock and servants possibly because God made all the women in his house infertile when he took Sarah, or because Abimilech was simply being generous. Either way, it was not because Abraham was involved in positive prosperity thinking.

Here’s a great one. A bunch of the Mesopotamian kings have a war in chapter 14, and the enemies of Sodom and Gomorrah raid the cities and carry off all their stuff, including Lot (Abram’s nephew) and his possessions. Abram gets word of this, chases after them and defeats them and carries everything back: property, Lot, women, and people. Then Bera the king of Sodom goes out to the valley of Shaveh to meet with Abram and makes a proposition that Abram should give him the people and take all the possessions for himself. Abram, however, replies:

I have sworn to the LORD God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say, `I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing except what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their share. (Gen. 14:22-24)

Are you starting to see a pattern here? Abram totally passes up the chance to get a whole bunch of seized property. Why? Because he had sworn so to God. Doesn’t that seem odd for someone who’s supposed to be a “prosperity teacher?” The answer is that Abram isn’t trying to magically bring good events through positive thinking, rather his thinking, his faith is founded on God’s promised plan for him.

2. Isaac

Isaac starts out on the “road to prosperity” with Abraham giving him “all that he owns” (Gen. 25:5), which I take to mean his inheritance as the child of promise. Abraham is also careful to send his sons by Keturah off to the east so that Isaac inherits the land of God’s promise. Then there’s a famine and Isaac heads off with his wife Rebekah to the land of Gerar which was ruled by Abimilech (remember him?)

I won’t go in to it, but Isaac repeats the whole sister/wife scandal with Abimilech, and it ends with Isaac staying to sojourn in the land because God promised to bless him there:

Now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him, and the man became rich, and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy; for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household…” (Gen. 26:12-14)

Once again we see the ones whom God chose prospering because he has blessed them. There can be no mistaking the specific charity of God for some sort of mystical “think it and you’ll get it” program. It wouldn’t matter how fiercely Abraham or Isaac or ANY of the line of the Israelites tried to bring good things to themselves through their mental patterns, because God always initiated the covenants. That is, God chose them, not the other way around.

3. Jacob

This one should be obvious to all. Jacob tricked his brother into selling him his birthright, the blessing that would ensure he would increase and become great. Does that sound like someone operating on the basis of positive thinking to bring about positive results? I doubt deception and duplicity fall under that category. That one example should be enough for Jacob, but there’s a few more instances that are worth looking at.

After Jacob tricked Esau, Rebekah sent him off to live with her brother Laban, supposedly to find a wife but really to keep Esau from killing him. He did end up finding his wife in Rachel, the daughter of Laban. Laban, however, made Jacob work for seven years before giving Rachel to him in marriage. Except when the marriage night came Laban pulled a switcheroo and gave Jacob his other daughter Leah instead. Then when Jacob confronted him about it he offered Rachel for another seven years work.

Does fourteen years of hard labor to marry the woman you love sound like the work of a prosperity teacher, or even someone focused on getting things by “feeding positive energy into the world?” To me it sounds like someone willing to do anything for his heart’s desire. If Jacob had followed the methods prescribed by The Secret I imagine he would have given up when his positive energy expended didn’t immediately result in positive energy gained. There’s even a mathematical formula we could use to find the point of diminishing returns.

The problem, of course, is that “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” (James 1:17)

One last story before we move on. It has come time for Joseph and his house to leave Laban and return to his own country (the land of promise, remember), and he asks Laban to send him on his way. Laban responds, saying that he realizes he has been blessed by God by having Jacob in his house, and he wishes him to stay, only name his wages. Jacob proposes that he go through Laban’s flocks and take all the black, spotted and speckled goats and sheep, so that Laban will know that if he has white goats or sheep that he has been dishonest. Then Laban, being Laban, takes all the black, spotted, and speckled goats and sheep and sends them a three days’ journey from Jacob.

But here Jacob gets the upper hand. He takes some kind of spotted plant and puts them near the sheep, so when they mate they see the plant and subsequently give birth to speckled and spotted young. Now I’m not going to go into the whole deal with that strange story because it’s beyond the point. Jacob is taking what is rightfully his (and more) through some sly scheming, and he ends up prospering while Laban decreases. Not exactly the power of positive thinking, but I would bet a dollar that the people hawking this book do similar maneuvers in their day-to-day business activities.

Lastly, Jacob gives his own testimony, while speaking to Rachel: “Yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times; however, God did not allow him to hurt me. If he spoke thus, `The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth speckled; and if he spoke thus, `The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flock brought forth striped. “Thus God has taken away your father’s livestock and given them to me.” (Gen. 31:7-9) Yet again we see that it is God who causes his chosen people to prosper.

Some of the last words we see Jacob utter are “few and unpleasant have been the years of my life..” (Gen. 47:9) You probably won’t be seeing those on the fly-leaf of subsequent editions of The Secret any time soon.

4. Joseph

Joseph, the favored son of Jacob (who was by this time called Israel), starts out his story in the thirty-seventh chapter of Genesis a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams. It is because of dreams that his brothers toss him into a pit then later sell him to some Midianite traders. They bring him down to Egypt where he is sold again to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s bodyguard.

Here’s a couple verses about Joseph’s tenure as a slave in Potiphar’s house:

“The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man.” (Gen. 39:2)
“Now his master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand. (39:3)
“The Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; thus the Lord’s blessing was upon all that he owned…” (39:5)

This is a pretty easy pattern to follow, isn’t it?

About this time Potiphar’s wife unsuccessfully tries to seduce Joseph. In her resentment she frames him for attempted rape and he is thrown in prison. Yet we see even here Joseph does well: “But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. … The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.” (Gen. 39:21-23) Hmm. He prospers in Potiphar’s house because the Lord was with him. He prospers in jail because the Lord was with him. Let’s see what happens to Joseph next.

While in jail he interprets the dreams of a couple of Pharaoh’s imprisoned officials. Pharaoh himself then has a disturbing dream which none of his magicians or wise men can interpret. On the word of one of the aforementioned officials, whom Pharaoh has pardoned, he brings Joseph before him. If you recall the story, Pharaoh recounts his dreams of the seven skinny cows who ate the fat cows, and the seven full ears (of corn) sprouting on a plant that are subsumed by seven withered ears. Joseph tells him that God is telling him what he is going to do. There will be seven years of plenty, then seven years of famine. Joseph continues, and advises Pharaoh that he “look for a man discerning and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt.” (Gen. 41:33) and appoint overseers to handle taking a fifth of the harvests during the next seven years to store up for use during the years of famine.

Pharaoh is rightfully impressed, and says “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit? .. Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.” (Gen. 41:38-40) Pharaoh also gives him fine clothes and a chariot and gives him total rule of all the land of Egypt. Pharaoh recognizes that God “informed” Joseph of the meaning of the dreams, but what did Joseph think? When in jail he said “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (40:8)

Joseph recognized the source of his ability, and that ability was the only reason he didn’t rot away in an Egyptian prison. God providentially used Joseph’s poor circumstances as a slave to put him in a place where he could bring his whole family down to Egypt while the famine in Canaan was severe and set them up to live in the best of the land where they could prosper. They enjoyed an honored position among a people who as a rule hated shepherds. And finally when Israel died they carried his body back to Machpelah where Abraham’s burial plot was. The funeral train included all of Pharaoh’s servants, the elders of his household and all the elders of Egypt (Gen. 50:7ff). There were also chariots and people on horseback. Imagine the puzzlement of the Canaanites as they saw this company stretching across the hills and valleys. All this for a withered old shepherd who died living in a foreign land. A man who was also the father of the most powerful man in all of Egypt save Pharaoh. A man chosen by God and father of a chosen people. Can we in any way doubt that the house of Jacob enjoyed the blessings of God and never received so much as a token through “positive thinking”?

Four-hundred years pass as the sons of Israel multiply in Egypt (according to the prophecy of Gen. 15:13), and that brings us to our next personage.

5. Moses

Moses was born a slave, during the period of oppression as the Egyptians in their fear of having a rogue nation in their midst tried to keep the ever-fruitful Israelites down-trodden through forced labor. Moses was also born under the reign of a Pharaoh who said that the Israelites were to execute all their male children. His mother couldn’t bring herself to and sent the child on his way down the river in a basket. The infant happened to be (providentially) found by Pharaoh’s daughter and was adopted into that lavish household.

Once he was grown he abandoned his place as prince (mostly because he killed an Egyption and Pharaoh tried to kill him) to go live in the desert for 40 years, only to come back and lead the rest of some-million Israelites out of lives that, while not lush, were certainly characterized by having enough food. Then he led them from Egypt back where? The desert; where they only survived through the supernatural benificience of God, and even then the elder generation (600,000) died before they entered the holy land.

I realize that’s a very short summation, but I think most people reading this have varying degrees of familiarity with the Exodus. Enough to see that health and wealth never entered into the minds of those enslaved under Pharaoh’s rule in their flight from that land. Well, it did, once they got into the Sinai and realized they were missing out on all the cool vegetables they had had. Their goal, on the other hand, was indeed a land of promise, but that promise was initiated by God. So in way you could say that they were after prosperity, but you can’t separate any prosperity they gained or missed out on from the actions of the God who initiated.

6. Jesus

Now I can somewhat forgive the writers of The Secret for misunderstanding the lives of the fathers of Israel. Unless you’ve gone out of your way to do some study you probably won’t be all that familiar with them. And sure, they were mostly wealthy. Actually that’s about the only thing the writers were right about.

But if they were wrong about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, surely they have no excuse for being wrong about Jesus. He’s probably one of the most widely-recognizeable figures all across the world. His teachings are surely igrained in the collective subconscious, at least to some degree. Do you know anyone who doesn’t know the Golden Rule? So why is it that the authors of this book got it so wrong? I don’t know, but let’s examine their errors anyway.

Firstly, and I’ve written about this before, if there was anyone who deserved to be “born high”, with all accoutrements proper to his station, it was Jesus. This was the God-Man, the Son of God, the Most High incarnate, the living Word. Yet he was born in a cave (Luke 2:7). Born in a cave to a carpenter and his wife. They lived in a town called Nazareth, which really wasn’t much to look at.

Jesus spent the years of his short ministry staying with people in various towns as he taught and healed, often retreating to the wilderness of the desert to be in solitude. His followers were ignorant fisherman; country bumpkins looked down upon by the religious authority of that day; despised tax collectors who gave back the wealth they had stole. Men who left everything they had to follow him (Matt. 19:27). Jesus and his disciples were not in any way wealthy. The only references I can find to money Jesus used in his ministry (and I might have missed some) include Judas the Betrayer who was dipping into the till, and a list of persons who contributed to the support of Jesus’ ministry, which he most likely used in turn to give to the poor (John 13:29).

What about his teachings? If Jesus’ life doesn’t show an extravagant lifestyle, perhaps it was because he didn’t get the chance. Maybe he taught his disciples to live that way. Let’s see:

1. A “rich young ruler” came up to Jesus, asking what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus responded by saying that the man knew the commandments, and the man said that he had kept them from his childhood. But there was one thing he still had to do: “‘One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! ‘For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.‘” (Luke 18:22-27)

2. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:19-21)

3. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” (Matt. 6:24)

4. “‘Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.‘ And He told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, `What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, `This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. `And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, `You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’” (Luke 12:15-21)

5. In Mark chapter 4 Jesus gives the parable of The Sower and the Soils. In it a sower goes out to sow seeds and various things happen to the seeds based on the soil. In his explanation, Jesus says that the seed is the gospel and the various soils (by the road where a bird snatches it up; rocky, shallow soil; soil covered in thorns; and finall good soil) are people who hear the gospel. Jesus describes the thorny soil as “… the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19)

6. In Luke 16 Jesus gives the story of a rich man and Lazarus. I’ll summarize rather than quoting fully. There was a rich man who lived in fabulous grandeur with all sorts of finery. There was also a man named Lazarus who was covered in sores and left in the streets to beg. When they both died the rich man went to Hades and Lazarus went to be comforted by Abraham. Realizing his plight, the rich man asks Abraham why he is in torment. Abraham responds, “Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.” (Luke 16:25) The rich man did not go to Hades because he was rich, but his richness didn’t mean anything once he left the earthly realm behind.

Jesus’ life and teachings directly oppose themselves to the pursuit of wealth when it precludes the pursuit of a godly life. He never advocated a life of life-denying asceticism, and he never promoted putting the pursuit of wealth first. He did say you cannot serve mammon (wealth) and God at the same time. You can’t seek after and make sacrifices to gain wealth and at the same time seek after and make sacrifices to gain God; it’s one or the other. He said the love of money is a root of evil. Something bad is going to grow out of it. He taught on how a life of rich excess and the true life that leads to eternal reward are opposed. Finally, he told his disciles, regarding their opposition: “…they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” (Matt 24:9) As Peter said, they had “…left everything and followed you…” (Matt. 19:27) Why? Because as Jesus told them: “…whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:35)

Where are the others?

This post wouldn’t be complete without considering the Biblical figures that were conspicuously absent from the quote we started with. What about David, who hid in caves from the murderous Saul? What about the prophets, the TRUE teachers of Israel, who mostly lived in abject poverty and were hounded by the people they were sent to speak to on behalf of God? What about John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness? What about Paul, who worked hard while he was making disciples, even though he was entitled to forsake working for the sake of preaching the gospel? (1 Corinthians 9:1ff)

What about Solomon? Huh? The guy who we at the very least can point to as a prosperous Biblical figure who had everything he thought he wanted. He said this: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity. When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look on? The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10-12)

This is a very interesting lesson, and it ties in with what we’ve learned about these biblical figures and what we can learn further if we consider what man was first given to do as work. What was man’s first job? Adam was a gardener. God put him in the land to cultivate it. Let’s face it, we are satisfied when we recognize our work is fruitful. Our happiness isn’t contingent on wealth, we can be happy in many situations, especially when we have useful work to do. I wager that if you lay hold of that one small idea it will be more profitable to you than everything you read in The Secret.

CONCLUSION

The authors of The Secret are selling a plain, simple lie, founded in part upon a faulty understanding of biblical history and teaching. The fathers of the Jews were indeed rich, and wealthy, and were so because of the incredible blessings and inheritance God gave them out of his charity. The prophet Moses led the people of Israel on a journey at the behest of God to bring them into the land he had promised to bring them to. The prophet and messiah, Jesus, taught that getting worldly wealth, along with any material gain, is worthless if it doesn’t last. Without space left to go over it I will simply say that his teachings mirror the things said by God and taught in the books of wisdom all through the Old Tetstament. Nothing in Jewish and Christian scriptures teaches that you should seek prosperity. They teach that prosperity is gained through hard work and the blessings of God, and that even they are useless since you can’t take ‘em with you. They teach that it’s all useless unless you gain eternal life. And here’s the best part: eternal life is free. It is a free gift from God available to anyone who believes and calls on his name.

The Secret is marketed towards hungry people, who are taught that they must fill themselves with things to satisfy that hunger. The word “things” isn’t specific, why? Because “things” means anything you can buy, or get, or own. It’s anything physical, or material, or satisfying to your worldly sense. That it what you are told you need. And I won’t deny it, I feel a certain surge of joy when that box from UPS shows up on my doorstep. Or when I make that internet purchase. That’s a vice I am having to work out of my life, when I buy things I simply have no need for. I like getting those things. But when I get bored with them or once I have assimilated what I get into my life, what then? True satisfaction can’t be gained by things you get bored with. Isn’t that manifestly obvious to everyone? And is there anything that you can get in this life that you won’t eventually lose interest in? Is there anything you’ve ever owned that caused you to light up every time you saw it, without fail, for years? I’ll wager not.

The imperishable, eternal life that is offered through the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ is the only thing that you won’t get bored with, because it’s new every morning. It is the only thing that will light you up every time you experience it, because there is great joy to be found. And it is the only thing that will satisfy you through the years and even into eternity, because it is imperishable. It is satisfaction for you as you walk about and do your business on this earth, and as you walk about and do your business in the life to be gained after the Second Coming. And no amount of pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo will get you there; true spiritual action is what makes salvation available to you. Not positive thinking, not putting good energy into the world, but a confession of faith and a true belief, leading to a pattern of living that fills you so you no longer hunger.

I can only pray that Oprah and the authors of this book will learn this lesson, and that the people who buy this book will realize their mistake. And I hope you’ll pray with me for the same thing.

One Response to “Oprah is a Dangerous, Dangerous Woman”

1. Praise Lutheran Church » Blog Archive » Oprah’s “Secret” says:

   November 11, 2008 at 5:21 pm

   [...] found yourself being drawn to her various fads, you should spend a moment and read this article.  CLICK HERE Posted under Around the web Comments [...]