Minister Jessica McFarland: Economic Justice & the Prosperity Gospel

The “Prosperity Gospel” is deeply appealing to many people in America. It lines up well with the idea of the American Dream - that if you just work hard enough, you can achieve anything. The Prosperity Gospel tells us that if we pray hard enough, if we dedicate our lives to Christ, and are faithful, then God will bless us financially. Unfortunately, the implication of that kind of gospel is that those who are not financially well off are not blessed by God - or worse, they are somehow being punished by God.

Minister Jessica McFarland is here to break down for us why this gospel is harmful and to show us a new way. A powerful advocate for economic justice, Jessica has seen first-hand the ways God works with, through, and for the oppressed. She shares with us a healthier understanding of what the Bible says about wealth and poverty, and gives us wisdom and clarity around our call as Christians.

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Jessica McFarland is a commissioned minister with the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ currently working Georgia as an economic justice advocate, teacher, writer, and mother to two teenagers. She fulfills her pastoral call primarily through work in housing justice and poverty alleviation. Jessica has an academic background in philosophy, political theory, biblical languages, literary and cultural criticism, and translation practice and holds degrees from Swarthmore College, Harvard University, and the Graduate Theological Union. She is on extended leave from her doctoral studies in religion in literature, with a planned dissertation focus on biblical theology and anti-theology in post-Shoah Israeli poetry. Jessica is currently serving as Director of Development for the Atlanta-based nonprofit Initiative for Affordable Housing (www.affordablehousingatl.org), which also operates an employment program for homeless women centered on the practice of traditional loom weaving (www.reloom.org). She teaches private courses on a variety of humanities topics for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students and adult learners and is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, “The Religion of Consequences” and “Bring Enough for Everyone.”