Self Help.

The prosperity gospel is very influential in Africa, in Pentecostal churches, and in Reformed churches. But what is the prosperity gospel? Where did it originate? Is it biblically sound? How should we evaluate the prosperity gospel? Does it represent a wrong way of looking for health and wealth, or can we learn something from it? In this book the authors provide an analysis from different perspectives on the highly debated topic of the prosperity gospel. It is intended to be accessible and helpful both to academic colleagues and to ordinary ministers. Most of the authors are lecturers at Justo Mwale Theological University College in Lusaka (Zambia). Together with Prof. L. Togarasei from the University of Botswana, they use their theological skills to examine and assess this important topic from an African and Reformed perspective. The articles in this book will help anyone who wants to deeply explore and evaluate the intriguing phenomenon of the prosperity gospel in Africa. Book jacket.

Be faithful in your giving and God will reward you financially. It's not always stated that blatantly but the promises of the Prosperity Gospel--or the name-it-and-claim-it gospel, the health-and-wealth gospel, the word of faith movement, or positive confession theology--are false. Yet its message permeates the preaching of well-known Christian leaders: Joyce Meyer, T. D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, and many more. The appeal of this teaching crosses racial, gender, denominational, and international boundaries. Why are otherwise faithful Christians so easily led astray? Because the Prosperity Gospel contains a grain of biblical truth, greatly distorted. For anyone who knows that Prosperity Gospel theology is wrong but has trouble articulating and refuting the finer points, this concise edition contains all the robust arguments of the hard-hitting original edition in a shorter, more accessible form.

Why do some societies fare well, and others poorly, at reducing the risk of early death? Wealth, Health, and Democracy in East Asia and Latin America finds that the public provision of basic health care and other inexpensive social services has reduced mortality rapidly even in tough economic circumstances, and that political democracy has contributed to the provision and utilization of such social services, in a wider range of ways than is sometimes recognized. These conclusions are based on case studies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, as well as on cross-national comparisons involving these cases and others.

Health, Wealth and Happiness By: Emeritus Professor (Dr) Gary Goh The age in which we live seems to be consumed by money madness. Thus, people work very hard to acquire wealth and neglect their health. They forget that ill health leads to loss of the acquired wealth because they need to pay the high medical costs to seek medical treatment and they have to experience suffering, sorrow, pain, fear and death. Life is a precious gift not to be wasted. To live properly in this reality, we must not ignore that health is equally important to wealth because without health, one cannot enjoy wealth and without wealth, one cannot survive since everyone needs shelter, food, clothing and medical support. Living in a reality that is constantly changing, we need to have a source of constancy in the mind on health, wealth and happiness to achieve a peaceful and contented life. This book is about how to achieve success in life through finding a peace of mind, acquire the material needs of life and, above all, attain happiness since we only have one chance to live in life.

Essays seeking to bring an historical perspective to bear on today's national and international policy concerns and to present original historical research that challenges conventional assumptions and viewpoints. Today's complex policy problems cannot be understood by the social, medical, and policy sciences, alone. History is also required to interpret the present and to inform attempts to mould the future. The essays in this volume seekto bring an historical perspective to bear on today's national and international policy concerns and to present original historical research, which challenges conventional assumptions and viewpoints. In Health and Wealth theessays in Part I offer an historian's reappraisal of several of the most influential ideas dealing with the relationships between health and economic development in the post-war international policy sciences, such as demographictransition theory; the McKeown thesis; and the population health approach. Part II presents a distinctive interpretation of the course and causes of mortality change in Britain during the 'long century' of industrialisation, c.1780-1914. British history shows that rapid economic growth is a highly disruptive process, unleashing potentially deadly challenges. The key to life and death in Britain lay less in medical science or rising living standards than in the changing electoral politics of the nation's industrial cities. Class relations, political economy, ideology, religion and the public health movement were all significant elements in this story. A late-Victorian flowering of vigorous municipal government was the precursor to central state activism in the twentieth-century. Part III reflects on history to make direct contributions to contentious current policy issues. The persistence of social and health inequalities today in developed nations and debates over the new concept of social capital are addressed, along with the economic and health problems of today's less developed countries. The lessons of history are awkward and heterodox, indicating the importance of establishing state-sanctioned institutions to ensure social security, legal identity and civic freedoms in advance of measures to stimulate and open these countries' economies to global trade.