Prosperity theology (also known as prosperity doctrine, the health and wealth gospel, or the prosperity gospel) is a religious belief centered on the notion that God provides material prosperity for those he favors. It is often used as tool to build large churches or ministries. Why? Because it plays well with comforting the comfortable. You see, building mega-churches and other large ministries these days takes money. Lots of money. When you want water, you go to the well, so when you want money, you go to those with money. But those with money often don't want to give it up so easily. They may call themselves Christians, but that doesn't mean they accept his teachings. Often, they want something in return. Something they can't get in the store. They want absolution.
At one time the Catholic Church is even said to have had a program called "indulgences". For a price, you could commit a sin and be absolved by the church, even in advance. Of course, the price varied according to the sin, with more serious sins being more expensive that lesser ones. In this way, the wealthy could buy absolution and the church got money.
Most Christians today would probably immediately call such a blatant system un-Christian. However, it goes on today in the more subtle form of comforting the comfortable. In this form, Church leaders tell their wealthy congregants that God made them prosperous because they deserve it. The thing God asks in return, they tell them, is for them to give a portion of their wealth back to God, meaning the Church, of course. It's alright that the poor are poor because if they deserved to be prosperous, God would make them so. In fact, some of the prosperous even start to believe that giving to the less fortunate would somehow be interfering with God's will. They wouldn't want to do that, so better leave the less fortunate alone!
As can be seen, prosperity theology is quite offensive. Some adherents will tell the less fortunate something like "if you do good and please God, he will make you prosperous like he has me." They even write and sell books with that message that make them yet richer. When it is pointed that most wealthy people actually got their money by inheriting it, the easy answer is "See, that just shows how wise God is. He knew what kind of people they would be even before they were born and so gave them wealthy parents."
This is kind of similar in some ways to racial theology that teaches that people are born certain races or colors because God favors them. Imagine, for example, a white person telling a non-white person "if you do good and please God, he will make you white like he has me." "But," the non-white person may respond "I was born non-white." Again, the easy answer is "That just shows God's wisdom in that he knew what kind of person you would be even before you were born."
Offensive? Certainly. But there are some people so convinced of their own racial superiority that they just eat it up. Likewise with prosperity theology and prosperity. They are convinced that that they are prosperous because of their own moral superiority, and they're willing to pay someone to keep telling them that.
