Book Review: Blessed, Kate Bowler, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Review

Kate Bowler’s book, Blessed, provides a historical and theological overview of the prosperity gospel in North America. She says, “Progressing chronologically, I trace the movement’s roots in the late nineteenth century to its flowering in the Pentecostal revivals of the World War II years and maturity in the ripe individualism of post-1960s America” (Kate Bowler, Blessed, Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 7).

She notes that “the prosperity gospel’s emphasis on the individual’s responsibility for his or her own fate resonated strongly with the American tradition of rugged self-reliance… The prosperity gospel consecrated America’s culture of optimism” (Bowler, Ibid., pp. 227). They teach that, “Tradition-bound Christians scraped by with barely enough while true believers drilled deeper to tap into the abundant lives that God [Jehovah Jireh, God the provider] had promised” (p. 95).

Although there are many justifiable critics to “prosperity” teaching, her book is an important chronicle of the movement and its place in the North American religious landscape.

4 stars   M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 4/5/2018

Excerpts:

“To the secular media, these prosperity leaders represented the Christianity of the American marketplace. With microphones pinned to their lapels, they preached upbeat messages of God’s goodness and human potential” (pp. 6).

“This was an American Gospel, based on hard work, pragmatism, innovation, self-reliance and…persistence – so celebrated as the foundation of the American character… It moralized money and finances as markers of thoroughgoing virtue… The American dream was realized not simply in those who had heaped up treasures, but who had all the virtues to earn it or discover it all over again” (pp. 32).