Sociologists: The sick and poor are more likely to seek blessings through Bible-reading.
One of the most common suspicions around the prosperity gospel is that it takes advantage of the sick and poor by overstating promises of blessings that may not come.
New research suggests that Americans with poor physical health and low socioeconomic status are particularly inclined to look to the Bible for insights into attaining “health and wealth”— an aspect of prosperity gospel teaching—even though doing so often ends up making them feel worse.
“At first glance, it might seem unsurprising to learn that people who experience certain deprivations and stressors are more likely to turn to scripture for relevant guidance,” wrote sociologists Reed DeAngelis, John Bartowski, and Xiahe Xu in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Based on about 1,500 responses from the 2012 General Social Survey, those in poor health were 28 percent more likely to seek health insights in Scripture, while those with lower socioeconomic status were 62.5 percent more likely to seek weath insights. Neither group was more likely to turn to the text for other reasons, such as personal devotion, Bible study, or memorization.
“Taken together, our analyses indicate that certain disadvantaged segments of the U.S. population may be turning to scripture strictly as a personalized quest for meaning and self-help and to the exclusion of other forms of religious study,” the researchers reported in a study released this week.
According to the analysis, about 2 in 10 Bible-readers turned to Scripture for health insights and 3 in 10 for wealth insights.
Overall, evangelical Protestants and black Protestants were more prone to a “health and wealth” approach to the Bible, as were Americans with higher ...
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