Name It and Claim It?: Prosperity Preaching in the Black Church

by Stephanie Y. Mitchem

Mitchem uses history and sociology in her latest resource to ground her arguments regarding the appeal of prosperity preaching in the black church. She carefully explores the shape of black communities and those things that make prosperity churches attractive to black members, describes three types of prosperity churches, and considers the impact of these churches and their ideologies on black communities and the black church.

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2007

Reviews

[Susie Meister · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book describes the shift in the theology of the African-American Church. The Church had embraced liberation theology, the belief that God wants freedom and equality for everyone. Many churches are now embracing Prosperity theology, claiming entitlement to abundance in exchange for faithfulness and “right” thinking. Megachurches, and their implication of success, are one explanation for the attraction of the upwardly mobile black community to prosperity theology. Prosperity gospel churches are often large, extravagant, and technologically sophisticated. Some argue that socially and economically challenged people are attracted to the church itself as much as the message preached there because it allows them to be associated with the church’s outward expressions of success. Stephanie Mitchem claims, “The impersonality of megachurches, evidenced by the distance of people from leadership, seems to add to the programmed mystique of the leadership and the evidence of ‘prosperity,’ which the people can attain by default by just attending the church.”