Much of evangelicalism in today’s America makes Christianity a kind of business transaction. I push the right buttons, and out comes a blessing or some positive outcome from God. It works kind of like a cosmic vending machine. This is not the gospel message. As the Apostles’ Creed concludes, you get the forgiveness of sins, the communion of the saints, and everlasting life, but not the absolute guarantee of immediate reward.

I am a Facebook user. Quite frequently I will see a post that says, “Type ‘Amen’ and in exactly two hours everything in your life that needs to be healed will be healed.” Under the comments section there will be a long string of amens. Or one will say, “Type ‘Amen’ and in one hour you will receive a miracle in your life.” My question is, a miracle from what or who? God? Zeus? The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

One day back in the eighties I was driving and had the car radio on the Christian contemporary music station. The DJ was chastising his listeners for not giving more money when they passed the bucket around at Christian music concerts. He promised us that whatever we put in, God will return fourfold. Really? What about the illustration told by Jesus about the poor widow who gave her last two mites? Did she get a fourfold return? Was she even expecting it? What was the point Jesus was making?

Back in 2000 Bruce Wilkinson published a little book, The Prayer of Jabez. This refers to a brief passage, 1 Chronicles 4:10. It reads:

“Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from harm so that it might not bring me pain! And God granted what he asked.” 

It became a bestseller. Evangelical Christians were repeating the Prayer of Jabez like chanting a mantra, expecting a new car to appear in the driveway or some similar blessing. I remember sitting in an airport gate waiting area and a man to my left was talking to two women. He was telling them in an animated tone about the multiple miracles suddenly occurring in his life since he started praying the Prayer of Jabez.

I teach church history at African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi. I use as the textbook Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley. Towards the end of the book he makes the observation about Americans in the 1980s and 90s: “Unlike the rich young ruler in the Gospels, church attenders seldom asked, ‘What must I do?’ They were far more likely to ask, ‘What do I get out of this?’”

One remembers in the Book of Daniel the three young men about to be pitched into the furnace for not worshipping Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. They said God was able to rescue them, BUT IF NOT they still would not bow down (Daniel 3:17-18).

There is the story of Esther who was called upon by Uncle Mordecai to risk her life by going to the king uninvited in order to save the Jews. She says, “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).

In the Book of Job we see a man losing everything, and it was by God’s permission. He makes the statement, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15).

The Book of Habakkuk ends with: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food…yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17).

Much of evangelicalism in today’s America makes Christianity a kind of business transaction. I push the right buttons, and out comes a blessing or some positive outcome from God. It works kind of like a cosmic vending machine. This is not the gospel message. As the Apostles’ Creed concludes, you get the forgiveness of sins, the communion of the saints, and everlasting life, but not the absolute guarantee of immediate reward. What is needed is for the church to forsake what I call voodoo evangelicalism and the attempt to manipulate God.

Larry Brown is a Minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and serves as Professor of church history, world history, hermeneutics and missions at the African Bible College in Lilongwe, Malawi.