Followers of the so-called prosperity gospel — known by its critics as the “blab it and grab it gospel” — are encouraged to believe that it is acceptable to pray for material wealth.

An authoritative report by the Evangelical Alliance, an umbrella organisation for Britain’s evangelical Churches, raises concerns about teachings that if the believer gives a sum of money to the preacher, God will multiply it by a hundred times or more in favour of the giver.

Preachers use mailshots, television and churches to persuade Christians that, by giving them money, believers will not only get out of debt, they will also become rich.

Churches have traditionally repudiated wealth in favour of a modest lifestyle. The prosperity gospel plays on an equivalent belief that traditional religion will ensure fertility, abundance and longevity.

It is proving attractive to wealthy Christians in the West, particularly in America, because it assuages their consciences. Some preachers teach that material blessings, along with physical health, are confirmation from God of a righteous and holy lifestyle.

Some of the poorest churchgoers are said to be deluded into believing that, if they give what spare cash they have to a particular preacher, they will receive the money back “one hundredfold”. But it is then the minister who becomes rich, often flaunting his wealthy lifestyle as proof of how well the prosperity gospel works.

The report says that prosperous, charismatic preachers can replace Christ as the object of adulation and admiration.

The prosperity gospel developed in America after the Second World War, its proponents teaching that health and wealth are not only good and godly but the inalienable right of every believer. Preachers did not merely ignore the examples of St Francis and Mother Teresa, they condemned them, teaching that poverty was the work of Satan.

“Lacking the traditional British embarrassment about money, Americans are more likely to see wealth as something to be invested and exploited,” the report says. “The movement has been an unabashed advocate of material prosperity and this has naturally invited the charge that it promotes a lifestyle and ethos fundamentally at odds with the values of the kingdom of God. Analyses of the movement abound with anecdotes about luxury cars and Rolex watches.

The emphasis on debt reduction in prosperity teaching is clearly a response to a serious and widespread social problem.”

The prosperity gospel has proved paticularly fertile for leaders among black-led churches, among the fastest-growing churches in the world. One recent survey showed that more than half of all churchgoers in London are black or Asian.

The prosperity gospel became a cause of concern among the evangelical movement in the 1990s because of the activities of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, which had offices in this country and was affiliated to the Evangelical Alliance.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Infertile couples to be made an NHS priority
• Sharp fall in number of GCSE entries
• Britain has more pensioners than children