Pretribulationsim is not the only false teaching that America exports overseas; the prosperity “gospel” is now corrupting Africa and bringing disgrace upon the name of Christ and Biblical Christianity. (I suppose there is more money to be made in the preaching of prosperity than persecution.)
Here is a sad and disturbing article from Christianity Today.
Here are some excerpts from it,
Pastor Michael Okonkwo rises from his gold-coated throne before 4,000 onlookers in Lagos, Nigeria. “Hallelujah!” bellows the self-proclaimed “father of fathers, pastor of pastors,” wearing a glittery green gown. The crowd stands and roars….
…Similar scenes unfold every day in countless venues throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where prosperity-tinged Pentecostalism is growing faster not just than other strands of Christianity, but than all religious groups, including Islam. Of Africa’s 890 million people, 147 million are now “renewalists” (a term that includes both Pentecostals and charismatics), according to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study. They make up more than a fourth of Nigeria’s population, more than a third of South Africa’s, and a whopping 56 percent of Kenya’s. . . .
In its 2006 survey, Pew asked participants if God would “grant material prosperity to all believers who have enough faith.” Eighty-five percent of Kenyan Pentecostals, 90 percent of South African Pentecostals, and 95 percent of Nigerian Pentecostals said yes. Similarly, when Pew asked if religious faith was “very important to economic success,” about 9 out of 10 Kenyan, Nigerian, and South African renewalists said it was…
The worst brand of African prosperity teaching is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an American export. Experts cite various reasons for the spread of this kind of renewalism, better known as health-and-wealth, including:
