Should Christians in the UK be worried about the prosperity gospel?

Over half of American churchgoers now believe God will bless them if they give more. Is the increase due to more people getting their teaching via the internet and TV? And if so, what could it mean for orthodox Christian beliefs in the UK? Peter Ould interrogates the data and makes a plea for better British surveys

Just over 1,000 American Protestants, who attended church at least once a month, were surveyed by Lifeway Research to explore their opinions on the prosperity gospel. The results were then weighted back to what researchers know about the wider Protestant church-going population.

In particular, the researchers were interested if the respondents “ticked the box” on core Evangelical beliefs (biblical authority, evangelism, substitutionary atonement etc). This means it is a much more reliable picture of what Christians in the USA believe, compared with some YouGov surveys of UK “Anglicans”, which don’t even check if they attend church, let alone believe in the core tenets of the Christian faith.