A wayward gospel

Regarding the Feb. 3 Point of View piece “Believing God is on the right side”: With all due respect, I beg to differ with the prosperity gospel’s view that “You were born to win; you were born for greatness; you were born to be a champion in life” (Joel Osteen).

Having served as a Christian missionary in post-genocide Rwanda for many years, I have met dozens of godly people whose family members were mutilated with machetes, whose throats were slit, who were shot in the head and who were even buried alive. Some of these people were killed while attempting to rescue others who were targets of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.

The 17th century English philosopher Francis Bacon once said, “Prosperity is the sign of God’s blessing in the Old Testament, but adversity is the sign of God’s blessing in the New Testament.”

Ask a Rwandese individual the difference between “soft” and “hard” prosperity, and he will laugh with tears in his eyes.

Martha Vetter, Durham