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A reader's comment on this article in the Telegraph:

One thing I would like to say about Oral Roberts, having said I can't speak for him, his message that God does not want people to be poor, or to be sick was liberation for the poor and the sick. Many Christians had been taught that they were suffering because God wanted them to suffer, like he wanted Jesus to suffer. There was a whole culture of the virtues of misery in Christianity, which loaded burdens on the poor and the sick on top of what they already had to contend with. Added to that there was a teaching that miracles ceased once the Bible had been compiled. All these still exist, but thank God, Oral Roberts raised up a standard against them. He may have gone off the rails, as did King David, but it does not mean he was never genuine. It does not invalidate his teaching that God is a good God, and the devil is a bad devil. And more than ever we all need to be able to believe that "something good is going to happen to you." From what I saw of him, I liked him, and I'm sorry he's gone.

Obankston ( talk) 17:16, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply

Confusing

Wanted to explain why I added the confusing tag. The Intro paragraph talks about Abundant Life as being a teaching about the whole prosperity of a person. Ok, good so far. Then "Teachings" paragraph starts talking about Word-Faith. Uhh.... nobody told me what Abundant Life has to do with Word-Faith. Shouldn't that at least be in the intro? Furthermore, Teachings never actually says what the teaching is. It just says that it's different from other teachings...well, *how* is it different?

Could someone with a little knowledge explain? I'm an outsider to the whole word-faith/prosperity/abundant/whoozamacallits movements, so the article as written confuses me. Would be happy to help edit/source the article at some point...may try some of those links above. Thanks,

Joren ( talk) 01:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC) reply

I agree that this article stub is incomplete. I started the article when I was working on updates to the article Oral Roberts, which had a flurry of activity (and vandalism) because Roberts died Dec 15. I started the article as a holding place for comments and links that were related to the Oral Roberts article, as I was employing Occam's razor on the Oral Roberts article. I split the article into a separate Abundant life (disambiguation) page and this article, so there wasn't much left for this article stub. Is there a template available to put at the top to say that this article is incomplete? I am better at tweaking what others have done than writing new articles, so I have focused on completing important statements and citations in the article Oral Roberts. BTW, my grandmother and mother were sufficiently involved with the early ministry of Oral Roberts to name me after him even before he started his television ministry in 1954. Obankston ( talk) 03:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Ok, I threw an {{Expand}} tag on there. If you'd rather, there's also an {{Under construction}} available. By the way, thanks for honestly disclosing your POV. I really don't know anything at all about Oral Roberts; I'm sure your knowledge is/will be an asset to Wikipedia. Joren ( talk) 04:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC) reply

Article outline

First cut at the article contents, no particular order:
- Expand the description of Abundant Life (the external links I have collected so far focus on this)
- Summarize the descriptions of Word-Faith, Prosperity Gospel, and Health and Wealth Gospel
- Contrast Abundant Life with Word-Faith, Prosperity Gospel, and Health and Wealth Gospel
- Summarize the descriptions of Vow of poverty, Asceticism, Simple living, and Voluntary poverty
- Contrast Abundant Life with Vow of poverty, Asceticism, Simple living, and Voluntary poverty
- Describe Abundant Life as countering political power that uses the ploy "I have more power if I am rich and my subjects are poor, so I'll tell them that it is virtuous to be poor." (need citations for this)
- Describe Abundant Life as countering the social expectation that says "I have been told that it is virtuous to be poor, and it is easier to be poor than to advance myself, so I'll just stay poor." (need citations for this)
- Historical perspective (need citations and more detail)

  1. Ancient times
    Including Job and Solomon and their riches
  2. Roman Empire era
    Including the teachings of Jesus and the early church
  3. Post-Roman Empire, dark ages, and medieval times
    Including the teachings of the Catholic Church
  4. Renaissance and Reformation until the Great Wars (World Wars I & II)
    Including the teachings of the Protestant churches
  5. Post-World War II
    Including the teachings of Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, and other teachers
    Teachings of abundant life made it O.K. for religious people to participate in the vast increase of wealth that occurred after World War II
  6. The future - the next 25 years
    There are indications that personal wealth in the Western world has peaked. What about emerging economies in the world at large? What will be the expectations of the upcoming generation? What will happen if apocalyptic scenarios actually do take place?

Obankston ( talk) 18:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC) reply

There is a discussion at Talk:Oral_Roberts#abundant_life.3F that has information of interest to this article. Obankston ( talk) 02:54, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply

Feedback on Article Outline

NPOV

Some advice - be careful not to make it seem like you are creating this article as a means to publishing your own point of view. These two sections in your outline kind of worry me:

Describe Abundant Life as countering political power that uses the ploy "I have more power if I am rich and my subjects are poor, so I'll tell them that it is virtuous to be poor." (need citations for this) - Describe Abundant Life as countering the social expectation that says "I have been told that it is virtuous to be poor, and it is easier to be poor than to advance myself, so I'll just stay poor." (need citations for this)

This runs the risk of sounding like you already have this idea/conspiracy theory and want to look for sources that say these ideas. Sources shouldn't be made to follow the article; the article should follow the sources. If it's there and it's a recurring theme, then so be it. If it's not...then we shouldn't try to read it in there. (On the other hand, if this is a notable argument that Oral Roberts et. al. uses then by all means simply say "so and so argues that the teaching of poverty is a conspiracy by the ruling elite" [1] [2] [3]. etc. But we don't have to try to prove his point :)

Definition of "abundant life"

My experience of how the term is used is different from what I see here. Now I am neither charismatic nor Pentecostal, so I am not familiar with its usage there, but I have seen the term used to mean eternal life as manifested in the present, with it's chief evidence being joy. This joy causes one to love and serve God and others whole-heartedly, under the empowerment and control of the Holy Spirit. God pours into you, so you can't help but pour out onto others and back to God, and that's what makes it "abundant" and "overflowing" (e.g. the common expression "my cup runneth over"). Abundant life = joy, and other blessings (e.g. material or health) are just icing on the cake (they are not contrary at all, but they're not the focus either). I'm sure there are other uses out there that I just haven't seen yet.

For such a generic term we need to be careful to write an article that covers how it's used across the spectrum. If I run across any sources I'll let you know - one that comes to mind from my Campus Crusade background is Bill Bright's usage of the term, which I suppose informs my own usage. He used the term to present the life that any Christian can and should be able to live if they are filled with the Holy Spirit. This definition shows up in many of their publications... and that's just one movement... There seems to be a variety of ways people use the term, and I'm sure there are other groups that have their own usages too. We need to write an article that's broad enough to cover all the notable uses of the term. You may know of some other prominent uses as well...? If we want to drill down into specific movements, then we can use sections a la:

  • Abundant Life
    • Origins (John 10:10)
    • Historical Christianity
  • Modern usage (list movements with WP:Notable uses of the term)
    • Catholicism (is there any notable use? I don't actually know)
    • Evangelical Christianity (work needs to be done on a definition that works for this broad umbrella)
    • Pentecostal/charismatic traditions
      • Oral Roberts
    • Swahili popsicle manufacturing
      • The Scandal of Sugary Goodness in the African Tongue

(ok I got bored) but you see what I mean :) ordering was alphabetical by the way, but we could do historical ordering based on who first used it, etc... thanks for trying to organize this; I know you said creating articles isn't really your cup of tea so thanks for stepping out to get some things together. I'll try to help when I get some inspiration for how to cover this broad topic. Joren ( talk) 23:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC) reply

What kind of concept is "abundant life"?

I'm a little confused about what sort of concept "abundant life" is in this article. It is portrayed as an alternative to the [prosperity gospel], but I've never heard anyone refer to an abundant life movement, and the links that I've looked at in this article don't seem to either. My concern is that this article is trying to take the concept of abundant life and turn it into a movement or school of thought that isn't there, or at least isn't commonly recognized. Are there references referring to leaders in the abundant life movement or that speak of the movement in other ways by name? -- Beirne ( talk) 11:38, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply

Yeah, it seems to be less a movement and more of a term -- A rather amorphous term, at that. Hence, this article will need to relate to defining that term and how it is used in various Christian contexts. There really doesn't seem to be a "movement" so to speak; it is more of a teaching or a concept that gets used in a variety of movements. I have concerns about the outline proposed here as well, as you can see above. Joren ( talk) 12:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Another concern that I have is that original research will be needed to fill out the content. There may be more existing material on the subject than I know, but trying to make the amorphous term into a full article may require synthesis, which is not allowed in Wikipedia. -- Beirne ( talk) 12:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply

Article contents and requirements

Edit this section as necessary to reflect consensus.


Items to fix, in order of descending priority:

  1. Add more verbiage to resolve the {{Confusing}} template.
  2. Provide alternate definitions.
  3. Describe how the term abundant life is used in the Bible and the related concepts Word-Faith, Prosperity Gospel, and Health and Wealth Gospel.
  4. Describe how the term abundant life is used in the Bible and various Christian contexts.


Contents of the article, in no particular order:

  • Abundant life is not a movement, but a concept used in other movements.
  • Abundant life is an amorphous, generic term, with usage that depends on the context.
  • Define the term abundant life.
  • Describe the teachings of abundant life, and their relationship to the related concepts Word-Faith, Prosperity Gospel, and Health and Wealth Gospel.
  • Describe the teachings of abundant life, and their relationship to the contrasting concepts Vow of poverty, Asceticism, Simple living, and Voluntary poverty.
  • Describe how the term abundant life is used in the Bible and various Christian contexts.
    • Origins (John 10:10)
    • Historical Christianity
    • Modern usage


Contents of the article, in order of appearance:

  1. No consensus yet


Requirements of the article, in no particular order:

  • The article should follow the sources.
  • For this generic term, cover how it's used across the spectrum.
  • Find sources that pull together this generic term, to avoid doing what Wikipedia calls original research and synthesizing.
  • Quotes from the Bible, as the foundation of Christian thought, are inevitable, but they are considered a primary source by Wikipedia, and tread near original research. See a discussion of this in Talk:Word_of_Faith#Tone_of_Article_and_Citations.
  • Templates for Bible quotes are available in Category:Bible link templates.


Obankston ( talk) 21:42, 16 January 2010 (UTC) reply

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