In the wake of a prominent prosperity preacher having to backtrack on a campaign to buy a $65 million dollar plane, Pastor and Gospel music star Kirk Franklin is speaking out against prosperity preachers.
“When a pastor wants people to buy him a private plane while a missionary in Somalia bathes children with sores, that’s a shortage of character. When I camouflage my ‘greeds’ to look like ‘needs,’ that’s a shortage of character,” wrote Franklin in a blog post on Patheos titled “The High Cost of Character.”
Franklin said that many of the prosperity preachers are taking their cues and antics from today’s hip-hop community like Jay-Z and Kanye West.
“This rises to the level of the truly absurd and sounds more like a rap verse that would come from Jay-Z or Kanye West who both by the way have blasphemous nicknames connoting them to God the Father (J-Hova) and his son Jesus Christ (Yeezus) respectively. Isn’t it ironic, or maybe not, that a preacher has a monetary moniker and rappers want to be connected to the divine,” he continued.
“Jay-Z, Kanye and their ilk have been spreading their own insidious brand of the prosperity ministry through their music and lifestyle brands. Their audience is much wider than the black community, but nonetheless they prey on the same group that the prosperity preachers target,” he added.
The preacher who had been raising money for the plane has cancelled his campaign for the jet after a wave of negative response from Christian publications.
