The American Dream did not create the prosperity gospel out of nothing; rather, it provided the theological atmosphere in which it could plausibly exist, expand, and masquerade as Christian doctrine. The prosperity gospel is therefore best understood as a contextualised competing doctrine or path to salvation, a salvation narrative shaped less by Scripture’s redemptive arc and more by American assumptions about success, autonomy, and visible material progress.
This is not a minor doctrinal disagreement. It concerns the nature of God, the meaning of faith, the purpose of salvation, and the definition of divine blessing.
A Reality Ordered Around Self or God
At the most fundamental level, the American Dream and the Kingdom of God operate from irreconcilable philosophical assumptions.
The American Dream presupposes an immanent, self-centred universe in which meaning arises from human aspiration and achievement. Reality is interpreted horizontally; progress, accumulation, and self-expression constitute “the good life.”
The Kingdom of God, by contrast, is rooted in a transcendent and theocentric metaphysic. Reality is ordered vertically, downward from God’s will and upward toward His glory. Meaning is not achieved; it is received through revelation and alignment with divine purpose.
The prosperity gospel resolves the tension between transcendence and immanence by subordinating divine transcendence to human agency. While God’s authority is formally affirmed, effective agency is transferred to the believer through prescribed practices of faith, confession, and giving. Sovereignty is thus maintained at the level of language but displaced at the level of function. God is neither denied nor openly diminished; rather, He is instrumentalised, recast from sovereign Lord into an operative principle within the individual’s project of self-realisation. In this framework, God no longer serves as the ultimate ground of meaning and truth, but as the guarantor of desired outcomes.
Who Governs the Story?
Every gospel presupposes a lord.
The American Dream enthrones the autonomous self. Authority resides in individual choice, desire, and ambition. Even discipline and sacrifice are instrumental; they serve the self’s eventual elevation as reward for endurance and tenacity.
The Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus Christ begins with an uncompromising announcement: Repent, the reign of God has arrived. This is not an offer of assistance to create a self-determined life; it is a declaration of authority.
The prosperity gospel subtly subverts this by redefining lordship. God reigns, but primarily to serve human advancement and flourishing as defined by the believer. Obedience is affirmed, but only insofar as it produces desirable outcomes. Submission is preached, but always tethered towards outcome and reward.
This results in conditional lordship. God is obeyed not because He is King, but because obedience is expected to pay off in fulfilled expectations.
Biblically, that is not lordship; it is contractualism.
Salvation from Sin or from Limitation?
Classical Christian soteriology understands salvation as deliverance from sin, reconciliation with God, and participation in the new creation.
The American Dream offers a different salvation: deliverance from limitation, obscurity, and lack. The good news is not forgiveness, but an opportunity to progress and prosper.
The prosperity gospel fuses these narratives by redefining salvation functionally. Sin becomes an obstacle to blessing. Faith becomes the means of accessing abundance. Redemption becomes upward mobility with divine endorsement.
The cross is retained symbolically, but its offence is neutralised. It no longer confronts human pride; it becomes the mechanism by which entitlement is justified.
Thus, salvation subtly shifts from transformation into Christlikeness to optimisation of one’s life circumstances.
The Self as Instrument or Idol
Biblical anthropology understands the human being as created, dependent, relational, and teleological, oriented toward God’s purposes.
The American Dream assumes the self is self-originating, self-directing, and self-validating.
The prosperity gospel baptises this anthropology rather than crucifying it. The self remains the organising centre, and God becomes the facilitator of the self’s fulfilment.
In Scripture, however, the self is not discovered through assertion, but through surrender. Identity emerges from participation in Christ’s obedience, not from self-actualisation.
The prosperity gospel does not deny self-denial; it reinterprets it as a temporary strategy for long-term gain.
That is not cruciform anthropology.
It is delayed gratification theology.
The Doctrine of Faith: Allegiance or Mechanism?
Biblically, faith is relational trust expressed as loyal obedience. It is covenantal, not technical or transactional.
Under the influence of the American Dream, faith is reengineered into a causal mechanism. Believe correctly, and receive a blessing. Speak positively, and alter reality. Give strategically, and secure return.
Faith becomes a spiritual technology. God becomes predictable. Mystery is eliminated. Suffering is pathologised.
This is not the faith of Scripture; it is religious pragmatism shaped by modern efficiency logic.
Glory Now or Glory After Faithfulness?
Christian eschatology locates ultimate fulfilment beyond the present age. Hope is primarily future-oriented, resurrection-shaped, and cross-formed.
The American Dream is eschatologically impatient. Fulfilment must be visible, measurable, and immediate.
The prosperity gospel collapses eschatology into the present by treating future inheritance as present entitlement, framing suffering as spiritual malfunction, and measuring God’s faithfulness by short-term outcomes.
The result is an over-realised eschatology that has no theology of suffering, endurance, martyrdom, or costly obedience.
The New Testament pattern of suffering now and glory later is replaced with glory now as proof of faith.
What Kind of People Are Being Formed?
The Church shaped by Kingdom theology forms disciples who endure, stewards who give sacrificially, and witnesses who suffer joyfully.
The Church shaped by the American Dream forms consumers seeking benefit, believers seeking leverage, and leaders measuring success by scale and affluence.
This is not heresy at the level of the creeds.
It is heresy at the level of formation.
People may confess Christ while being shaped by a different gospel.
Final Theological Judgment
The American Dream did not merely influence the prosperity gospel; it supplied the governing imagination that rendered it both credible and compelling within the Church. What emerged is not a minor theological imbalance, but a systemic distortion of the gospel itself, produced when cultural narratives are permitted to function as theological authorities.
The prosperity gospel must therefore be named for what it is: a rival soteriology and a functional replacement for the gospel of the Kingdom. It proclaims a form of salvation ordered around visible success, measurable increase, and personal advancement, rather than repentance, obedience, and conformity to Christ. In doing so, it redefines blessing, reconfigures faith, and reframes the purpose of redemption.
This distortion is especially dangerous because it does not openly reject Christ; it reinterprets Him. Jesus is affirmed verbally yet displaced practically, reduced from sovereign Lord to guarantor of outcomes. The cross is acknowledged symbolically but evacuated of its formative power. Suffering is no longer a means of participation in Christ, but a sign of spiritual malfunction. Endurance is replaced by expectation. Faithfulness is eclipsed by results.
At its core, this is not an error of prosperity, but an error of lordship. Wherever success becomes the measure of divine approval, obedience becomes conditional. Wherever blessing is defined by accumulation, discipleship is reduced to strategy. Wherever God is approached as a means to an end, He ceases to be worshipped as the end Himself.
The Kingdom of God does not coexist with such a framework. It renders judgment upon it. The gospel announced and embodied by Jesus Christ calls not for the sanctification of ambition, but for its crucifixion. It does not promise ascent through technique, but resurrection life through obedience. It does not guarantee comfort, but demands allegiance. It does not offer success as proof of faith, but faithfulness as participation in divine life.
The final verdict is therefore unambiguous. Where the American Dream governs Christian imagination, the gospel is inevitably reshaped to serve the self. Where the gospel of the kingdom governs, the dream must fall into the ground and die so that the resurrection power of Christ can raise it if it passes the test of divine scrutiny.
That death is not loss, it is liberation. And only in that liberation can the Church recover the power, credibility, and cruciform witness of the Kingdom of God.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, Lord Jesus Christ.
