Yesterday’s post looked at the late Norman Vincent Peale‘s man-centred message which still appeals to men and women today.

Although it was not perhaps technically a prosperity gospel, it certainly was a forerunner, as Peale taught through sermons and books that we could achieve anything we put our minds to. If that doesn’t include wealth and prosperity, what does?

Another preacher who came along a few decades later was the Reverend Ike.  It would be interesting to know how much he might have been influenced by Peale’s methodology, which included positive thinking combined with science, especially psychology.

Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II‘s father was a Baptist minister in South Carolina. He was a Dutch Indonesian who married an American. Frederick II — Reverend Ike — was brought up in the Church and, during his teenage years, became assistant pastor of Bible Way Church in Ridgeland, South Carolina. Ike served in the US Air Force as a Chaplain Service Specialist. He was a non-commissioned officer who assisted Air Force chaplains in their ministry.

Ike moved towards the prosperity gospel and founded three churches over time: the United Church of Jesus Christ for All People in Beaufort, South Carolina, the United Christian Evangelistic Association in Boston, Massachusetts (his main corporate entity), and the Christ Community United Church in New York City.

Although Reverend Ike was known for his radio programme, he also had a television show, which I caught briefly at the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s. In the first show I saw of his, he preached about cars. If a person really wanted a car and truly believed he could have one, it would be his. The sentence of his which stuck in my mind was:

Don’t wait ’til you die to get your pie in the sky!

An article about him which appeared on the NPR (National Public Radio) site recalls another saying of his:

You know, I come to you today lookin’ good, feelin’ good and smellin’ good.

In one of his most famous sermons — ‘You Deserve the Best’ (compare with Peale’s ‘Be Your Best’) — he discusses the notion that if a person believed he could have $1m, it would fall into his lap:

It’s interesting to read the comments beneath the video. The pitch by giftofmoney under the introduction is Pealesque (emphases mine):

Learn how to use your God-given mind power for success and prosperity …

And this, also channelling Peale:

You have to keep listening to Rev. Ike’s CDs over and over. Each time you will hear something new that applies to you, and the message will reach deeper into your subconscious mind to change your thinking! And as your thoughts change to positive, your emotions will also change to positive!

Then this comment from a Reverend Ike fan, favorsonme, which brings Gnosticism into the mix:

Rev. Ike didn’t refer to Biblical teachings, rather ancient teachings of mysticism and metaphysics which existed long before Christianity and the construction of the Christian Bible. He’s telling you all the truth that those who made the Bible wanted to keep hidden!

Another adherent, roseroyceGHOST, cites favourite Bible verses and also mentions Gnosticism, although not in so many words:

Proverbs 30:32 teaches our thoughts & mouth our powerful. Thats what got me where I am…study Proverbs 6:2…Mark11:23…Proverbs18:21…2Cor10:3-5…2Cor4:18…Eccles5:2…Eph4:29…Psalms39:1­…Psalms141:3…Matthew12:34-37…Rom10:10.­…Now that was my book of “the Secret”[;] the authors wrote it thousands of years ago. Amen.

Let’s examine the verses:

Proverbs 30:32: If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.

Proverbs 6:2: if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth,

Mark 11:23: Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Proverbs 18:21: Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5: 3For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

2 Corinthians 4:18: as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Ecclesiastes 5:2: Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Psalms 39:1: I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence.”

Psalms 141:3: Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!

Matthew 12:34-37: 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Romans 10:10: For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

The Old Testament verses above concern careful speech. Paul’s verses talk about seeking eternal life and confessing Jesus as Lord. In Matthew’s, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and warns we shall be called to account for our speech revealing any darkness in our hearts. It’s interesting to see how a preacher could twist these verses or encourage a follower to put them into a materialistic context.

The Ike fan who cited them, roseroyceGHOST, went on to describe his CDs as

AWESOME! … THEY WORK!!!

Christian reader SuperDonster cautioned:

I’m not going to argue w/you,but I will advise you that this man is teaching a “New Age” concept called-The Law of Attraction.It’s repackaged eastern mysticism.I know because Christ saved me from it. Listen @1:05–1:10 Ike mocked Jesus’ teaching in Luke18:11-14. @2:00 on listen closely to what he teaches.Then type in “The Secret” and watch those videos about that book.It’s the same lies from Satan.He even uses the same “buzz words.” Joel Osteen,Joyce Meyers,TD Jakes teach this witch craft too

I’ll revisit Joel Osteen tomorrow, by the way.

Whilst The Secret looms large in the YouTube discussion of Reverend Ike’s sermon, this get-rich-quick, positive thinking and prosperity gospel has been around forever. Some trace it back to the Enlightenment, but Gnostics have been around since the dawn of time. The Secret‘s creator Rhonda Byrne got the idea for her 2006 film from a book published in 1910, The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D Wattles.

Reverend Ike was born in 1935, in the middle of the Great Depression. No doubt he’d read some of these growing up, even during the Second World War. Books involving a ‘scientific’ formula ‘guaranteed’ to bring riches via positive thinking are always popular. This brings us back to Norman Vincent Peale. On the secular side, the famous motivational author Napoleon Hill was writing when the Reverend Ike was born. His most famous book is Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937. Like Ike, Hill was also from a small town in the southern United States. By the time Ike was born, Hill was already serving as a special adviser to President Franklin D Roosevelt. Hill took his own inspiration for success from the life of Andrew Carnegie, a self-made man.

Another of Hill’s books was called The Law of Success. I would posit that Hill, Peale and many others offering ‘laws’ or ‘science’ promising success no doubt gave rise to the countless self-help books which have been flooding bookshops since the 1970s. What used to be a trickle is now a flood, and not just in the United States. Even France has been inundated by a plethora of these volumes over the past 15 years.

But I digress.

The Reverend Ike Ministries has — and sells — a programme called Thinkonomics which operates on this Gnostic-scientific-visualisation formula:

Rev Ike’s Life-Changing
Audio Products on CD!

Spiritual growth and development involve continual study and practice. Rev. Ike’s dynamic AUDIO LESSONS will show you how to use your GOD-GIVEN MIND POWER to overcome life’s challenges and to have all the good you desire!

Reverend Ike died in 2009 at the age of 74. His only son, Bishop Xavier, continues his father’s ministry. Like Ike, Xavier grew up in his father’s church. Like Peale’s ministry, Xavier states that his  combines

ministerial and psychotherapeutic work.

It also draws heavily on

ancient cultures.

Another Reverend Ike offering is his Pealesque Science of Living:

Some ‘religious’ people are going to be shocked by what I have to say next…

…You see, Rev. Ike’s teachings are based on the Bible, — but not the literal translation of the fundamentalists…

… Rev. Ike interprets the Bible SYMBOLICALLY, not literally.  He considers the Bible the greatest book of Mind Science  — the greatest book of spiritual psychology —  ever written!

When he gets through with you, the
Bible will never be the same…

You will UNDERSTAND it for the
first time in your life!

Note the Gnosticism.

With Reverend Ike and Norman Vincent Peale, the Bible became a self-help book, not two Testaments of God’s covenants and redemption through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith to Peale and Ike revolved around self-belief. According to them, there is no Gospel of grace and no Holy Trinity active in our lives.

There is nothing wrong with much of self-help as such — however, it does not belong in church and is not Christianity.

Positive thinking for everyday survival is all well and good. But it is not the holy, God-centred message of the Bible. Nor is the Bible a set of fortune-cookie verses.

Therefore, those who are interested in positive thinking would do well to study the practical information in self-help books but avoid confusing their content with faith, grace, Christian belief and history as spelled out in Holy Scripture. Let’s not forget Jesus’s words in Matthew 6:21:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Our treasure should be set on Jesus Christ and praying for divine grace so that we live with Him for all eternity.

There is no Gnostic Secret in the Bible. Some preachers are getting rich off CDs, books and ‘churches’. This fortune rarely extends to the people sitting in the pews.

Tomorrow: Joel Osteen