The Prosperity Dharma?
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 3:06 am
The Prosperity Gospel is a version of Protestant Christianity (or perhaps an offshoot from it, depending on your perspective) that teaches, in short, that Christ wants you to be wealthy; that religious practice should involve a measure of material benefit (or that material benefit correlates or represents spiritual blessing); and so on. Here are some perspectives and resources (there are many points of view on this) for the purposes of clarity:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... ospel.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... sh/307764/
http://www.rickross.com/reference/tv_pr ... ers79.html
In a conversation with a friend, it was suggested that a major Buddhist organization was effectively promoting something analogous to the Prosperity Gospel, but in Buddhist terms: a Prosperity Dharma, if you like. This is an organization that is active in Asia but increasingly in America and Europe. I can see how such a twisting of the teachings might occur (people are people, life is life), but I have a difficult time imagining such a teaching could find a welcome ground in the States. Why? Because many of those who are involved in Dharma to begin with did so out of a revulsion with the Robert Tiltons of the religious world, and found among the Buddhists a community committed to practice for the sake of practice, not devotion for the sake of dollars or whatever.
Then again: could it be that a prosperity Dharma might attract new people to the teachings--people who don't object to a Tilton-style glitz approach?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sp ... ospel.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... sh/307764/
http://www.rickross.com/reference/tv_pr ... ers79.html
In a conversation with a friend, it was suggested that a major Buddhist organization was effectively promoting something analogous to the Prosperity Gospel, but in Buddhist terms: a Prosperity Dharma, if you like. This is an organization that is active in Asia but increasingly in America and Europe. I can see how such a twisting of the teachings might occur (people are people, life is life), but I have a difficult time imagining such a teaching could find a welcome ground in the States. Why? Because many of those who are involved in Dharma to begin with did so out of a revulsion with the Robert Tiltons of the religious world, and found among the Buddhists a community committed to practice for the sake of practice, not devotion for the sake of dollars or whatever.
Then again: could it be that a prosperity Dharma might attract new people to the teachings--people who don't object to a Tilton-style glitz approach?