'Creflo Dollar Made Me a Catholic,' Reveals Ex-Evangelical Blogger
A former Evangelical blogger who has since converted to Roman Catholicism has revealed that the prosperity gospel controversies surrounding big-name preachers like televangelist Creflo Dollar are what pushed him in that direction.
"The prosperity Gospel movement is bizarre given that Jesus was unequivocal about wealth but, like the secular spirituality of many popular American celebrities, the movement soldiers on," Albert Little, who describes himself as a 31-year old evangelical convert to Catholicism living in Ontario, Canada, wrote on his Patheos blog "The Cordial Catholic."
"While it might be a stretch to say that someone like Creflo Dollar made me a Catholic it would be accurate to say that the possibility of theological interpretations like Dollar's are, in large part, what's driven me in my search for deeper truth," he added.
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"A search which has landed me on the doorstep of the Catholic Church."
Dollar, who leads the World Changers Church International in Atlanta, Georgia, has been embroiled in major controversies, such as his request in 2015 for 200,000 people to donate $300 or more each to raise $65 million to help his ministry purchase a luxury jet.
Dollar has defended himself by stating that "there is no such thing as the prosperity gospel" and the money in his pocket belongs to God.
"When we talk about prosperity, and people say it's the prosperity gospel, there is no such thing as the prosperity gospel, it's the gospel of grace. The money in my pocket is not mine, it's God's," Dollar said in April 2015.
"It came from Him. He is the source behind everything we have that is good. He loves to be trusted; He loves to be the one that you lean on. He loves to be the one that you rely on and He wants to be the one that you lean on and rely on first," the megachurch pastor continued.
Little wrote that it was Dollar's approach to tithing and his presentation of Christian Scripture that really made him wrestler with his Protestant faith at the time.
"If God intended the Bible to be read like we Protestants read it then what alternative is there? I read my Bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help to interpret, and come to a conclusion. This is exactly what Creflo Dollar's done, and he's flying around the world in a multi-million dollar jet," he suggested.
"Certainly, we can roll our eyes at theological absurdities like the obviously distorted beliefs of Creflo Dollar's prosperity mission. It doesn't feel right to be asking for millions of dollars in the name of Jesus — who ministered to the poor and marginalized," Little added.
Explaining that he has wrestled with the question of who has authority over Scripture, and ultimately whose interpretation he can really trust, Little said that his search led him to the Catholic Church.
"Instead of a million different interpretations I found a Church that traces its lineage, mission, and authority back to Christ and the first Apostles. Back to the Lord's Supper. Back to the Upper Room. Back to Paul, and Peter," he asserted.
"The Catholic Church, which asserts that Jesus didn't leave us a Bible, He left us a Church. A Church with an authority structure that we can see clearly in the New Testament — a Church that the Apostles passed on," he added.
