The One Who Became a Doctor

What this page is asking

The author of this site set down a thesis to be tested: “A church that spotlights the one child who became a doctor, while staying silent about the many who left the faith, is following a hidden variant of the prosperity gospel, even as it preaches against the prosperity gospel.”

His core claim was this. The church in the scenario preaches against the prosperity gospel. Yet it holds up one child’s success again and again to imply that if families follow its programme, their children will do well. “That is the same promise the prosperity gospel makes (do this, and God will reward you with earthly success), moved from money to children’s careers. Because it is never stated outright, it is harder to see and harder to challenge. I think it poses the same or greater perils.”

The scenario is hypothetical, and it follows from an earlier dossier, The Tower of Babel Method (Dossier 56), which examined a ladder of visible dedication that some churches set before their members. Over ten years, the children who attended regularly and whose families took part in many of the recommended activities turned out like this:

The church talks about the one who went to medical school. It implies again and again, in a way that leaves no doubt, that if you follow the method your children will do well. Many new parents who hope their child will become a doctor are drawn in. The church is careful not to talk about most of the other outcomes.

He put the question in a form that can be checked: Is this the behaviour that Philippians 3:18–19 and 1 Timothy 6:5–6 warn against? Does pointing to one child’s earthly success, while hiding the other outcomes, amount to “supposing that gain is godliness”? Is it a variant of the prosperity gospel, even when the church preaches against the prosperity gospel?

He also set the scope. The page stays with one question: the selective reporting of outcomes and the implied promise of earthly success. It does not revisit every part of the Tower of Babel method. And it is not a criticism of medicine, of the child who became a doctor, or of parents who want their children to do well. Those are noble outcomes and noble hopes.

Two ways of reporting, labelled so they can be told apart

The page compares two ways a church can speak about how its children turn out. They are given letters so that it can refer to them briefly.

Nobody, so far as the author knows, teaches Position S as a doctrine. A church that practises it would probably deny that it promises anything. That is the point of the thesis. The page is testing whether a promise can be made by what is shown and what is hidden, without ever being stated.

What both sides agree on

So the disagreement is not about whether the child’s success is good, or whether the church may be glad of it. It is about what the church does with it: whether the success is told as one part of an honest account, or used, alone, as evidence that a programme delivers.

What the page concludes, stated up front

The prompt behind this page

Everything below was produced by giving the following brief to a frontier language model with web search, which assembled and checked the sources. It is published so you can run it yourself, change it, sharpen it, or reverse it and see what comes back. Three experiments are worth more than reading this page. First, reverse it: ask for the strongest case that a church should hold up its successful young people as an encouragement to families, and see what it has to say about the ones who left. Second, narrow it: write down every outcome you actually know of from the young people of one church, and ask what a fair report of them would say about the church’s programme. Third, widen it: ask the same question of a school, a university or a charity that advertises its best results, and see whether the same rules of honest reporting apply.

Write a detailed, source-first, interactive article, in British
English, for a general reader who is willing to work. Quote Scripture
from the Authorised Version. Date and attribute every other
quotation: give the work, the edition or translation, and the
section. Verify every quotation against a reliable published source;
where a quotation cannot be verified, cut it, or say that it is
given at second hand. Do not invent quotes. Do not take verses out
of context.

  WORKING TITLE. The one who became a doctor. (Propose a title that
  will resonate with readers.)

  THESIS TO TEST. A church that spotlights the one child who became
  a doctor, while staying silent about the many who left the faith,
  is following a hidden variant of the prosperity gospel, even as it
  preaches against the prosperity gospel.

  CORE CLAIM. This is a hypothetical scenario, related to the
  separate thesis on "The Tower of Babel Method". The church in this
  scenario preaches against the prosperity gospel. Yet it holds up
  one child's success again and again to imply that if families
  follow its program, their children will do well. That is the same
  promise the prosperity gospel makes (do this, and God will reward
  you with earthly success), moved from money to children's careers.
  Because it is never stated outright, it is harder to see and
  harder to challenge. I think it poses the same or greater perils.

  THE SCENARIO. Over a period of, say, 10 years, the following
  outcomes are observed among the children who attended church
  regularly and, along with their parents, took part in many of the
  activities recommended under "The Tower of Babel Method":
   - Many leave the church (they do not attend any church). Some
     specifically blame their experience at church as young people.
     The method seems to cause disillusionment, especially in
     idealistic young people.
   - A few stay in the church (they attend a church). They have
     chosen varying career paths.
   - One child goes on to medical school.
  The church focuses on the one child who went to medical school. It
  implies again and again, in a way that leaves no doubt, that if
  you follow the method, your children will do well. Many new
  parents who hope their child will become a doctor are drawn in.
  The church is very careful not to talk about most of the other
  outcomes.

  KEY PASSAGES. Philippians 3:18-19. 1 Timothy 6:5-6. Add others as
  applicable.

  QUESTION TO TEST. Is this the behavior these passages warn
  against? Does pointing to one child's earthly success, while
  hiding the other outcomes, amount to "supposing that gain is
  godliness"? Is it a variant of the prosperity gospel, even when
  the church preaches against the prosperity gospel?

  SCOPE. Stay with this one question: the selective reporting of
  outcomes and the implied promise of earthly success. Do not
  revisit every part of "The Tower of Babel Method". This is not a
  criticism of medicine, of the child who became a doctor, or of
  parents who want their children to do well. All noble outcomes or
  aspirations.

  POINTS TO TEST.
   1. One success out of many is not evidence. Selective reporting
      (survivorship bias). "A false balance is an abomination to
      the LORD" (Proverbs 11:1; compare 20:10). What would a fair
      and honest report of all the outcomes look like, and what
      would it suggest about the method?
   2. "Supposing that gain is godliness" (1 Timothy 6:5-10). Is a
      prestigious, well-paid career for one's child a form of
      "gain" in Paul's sense? Is promoting church involvement as
      the path to it the error Paul describes?
   3. "Who mind earthly things" against "our citizenship is in
      heaven" (Philippians 3:19-20). Is a church that measures its
      fruit by its children's careers minding earthly things?
   4. The same structure as the prosperity gospel: give, believe
      and obey, and God will reward you with wealth and health;
      participate in the program, and your children will succeed.
      Does changing the reward from money to careers change
      anything essential? Connect to the earlier article on the
      prosperity gospel.
   5. The lost sheep, reversed (Luke 15:3-7; Ezekiel 34:4). What
      would honest pastoral attention to the children who left look
      like, including listening to their reasons?
   6. Who gets the credit for success? Aptitude, hard work,
      schooling, family resources, the child's own choices.
      Correlation and cause. Deuteronomy 8:17-18; 1 Corinthians
      4:7. Is claiming credit for a child's success a form of
      boasting?
   7. Heads I win, tails you lose. Are failures quietly blamed on
      the parents' lack of commitment? A method that takes credit
      for every success and none of the failures cannot be tested.
      Connect to the earlier article.
   8. Using parents' hopes as a lever (2 Peter 2:3). What does it
      teach children? When the success does not come, does the
      faith collapse with it (Mark 4:16-17)?
   9. Scripture does not promise earthly success to the faithful:
      Ecclesiastes 9:11; Hebrews 11:36-38; Job 42:7; Proverbs 22:6
      as general wisdom, not promise. Connect to the separate
      thesis on "Train up a child".
  10. What does "doing well" mean in Scripture? Galatians
      5:22-23; 1 Corinthians 7:17-24; 12:14-26; Colossians 3:23.
      Does ranking children's outcomes by career prestige fit the
      Christian doctrine of vocation? Connect to the earlier
      article on vocation.
  11. The strongest case for the other side: "Rejoice with those
      who rejoice" (Romans 12:15); church involvement can genuinely
      help children; studies associating religious participation
      with positive outcomes; the church may never explicitly claim
      causation; young people leave for many reasons (compare
      Demas, 2 Timothy 4:10); parents share responsibility. Is the
      problem the celebration itself, or the implied promise
      combined with silence about everyone else?
  12. What the narrow point does and does not prove. It does not
      prove that any real church's program is harmful, or that its
      leaders are cynical. It tests whether a pattern (selective
      testimony plus an implied promise of earthly reward) is the
      prosperity gospel in a different form. Let readers decide,
      and show how a church could report its outcomes honestly.

OBJECTIONS. Answer objections inside the argument, where each one
arises, at full strength, with the case for the other side given its
own Part. Where the evidence corrects or qualifies the brief, say so
in a marked box.

NAMING. The church is hypothetical and must not resemble or identify
any real congregation. No living individual named as an example.
Every remark attributed to a pastor, parent or child composed and
labelled as composed. Deceased writers quoted from dated, published
works.

INTERACTIVES. A priors quiz. The whole congregation shown first as
the church shows it, then as it is. A simulation showing how often a
congregation that does nothing produces a success to point to.
Statements sorted by whether they treat godliness as gain. Paul's
credentials in Philippians 3, phrase by phrase. The prosperity
formula with its reward swapped. Departures recorded in Scripture.
The credit for a child's success divided among its causes. Outcomes
and how the showcase would explain each. Lessons a child would draw.
Faithful lives and how they went on earth. Promise or proverb.
Church announcements placed by what they celebrate and what they
imply. An objection drill the reader answers first. Claims sorted by
whether the argument proves them. A test for any testimony, and the
reader's own verdict.

OUTPUT: a single self-contained interactive HTML page, professional
and readable, light theme by default with a dark switch, stating the
question at the top, publishing this prompt in full, repeating the
key points in prominent boxes for readers who skim, explaining every
technical term in a box where it is used, and giving the reader
something to do in every major section. Also produce a plain-English
quick version of about fifteen minutes with three short exercises,
and a Simple English version with no exercises.

The page you are reading is the output of that brief after the sources were checked. The brief quoted several passages from modern versions; the page gives them from the Authorised Version, as it does everywhere on this site. Eight things qualified the brief, and each is marked where it arises.

What do you currently think?

Ten questions. Each has a determinate answer, and you can check every one yourself in the texts listed in Part XV. Answer them before reading and lock them in. They come back in Part XIV with the sources beside them.

What follows

The whole congregation

The scenario gives no numbers, only “many,” “a few” and “one.” To make it visible, this page uses an illustration of its own: thirty children who grew up in the programme. Ten years on, twenty-two attend no church, seven attend a church somewhere, and one is at medical school. Change the numbers if you like; the argument does not depend on them. What it depends on is the difference between what is shown and what happened.

Try it: light up the congregation

Start with the congregation as the church presents it on a Sunday. Then switch to the whole count. Tap any child to read a line about them. Every line is composed by this page; none describes a real person.

Two things stand out once the whole count is lit. The first is obvious: the gold light is one of thirty. The second is easy to miss. Several of the children who left the church have also done well by any worldly measure. There is an engineer, an accountant, a nurse. If the programme produced the doctor, it presumably helped produce them as well. But they are never mentioned, because the showcase does not select only for success. It selects for success and staying. That is the selection a church makes when it is showing parents what its programme yields, not what happened to its children.

One success is not evidence

The oldest account of this mistake is older than Christianity. Cicero tells it in On the Nature of the Gods, written in 45 BC, about Diagoras of Melos, a Greek of the fifth century BC known as “the Atheist.” On the island of Samothrace, whose gods were thought to protect sailors, a friend showed Diagoras the temple walls hung with painted tablets. Each had been given by a sailor who had prayed in a storm and come home safe. Did this not prove that the gods cared for men? Diagoras agreed that the tablets were there, and gave the reason.

“Ita fit,” inquit, “illi enim nusquam picti sunt qui naufragia fecerunt in marique perierunt.”

… there are nowhere any pictures of those who have been shipwrecked and drowned at sea.

Cicero, De Natura Deorum III.89 (45 BC); trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library (1933).

Francis Bacon retold the story in 1620 as the first example of a habit of mind he thought ruined all reasoning: noticing the cases that agree with what one already believes and passing over the rest.

And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, — “Aye,” asked he again, “but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?”

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), Book I, Aphorism 46; trans. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis and Douglas Denon Heath, Works, vol. 4 (1858).

The church in the scenario has a votive tablet: one picture, of the child who prayed, attended, served, and came home safe to medical school. Diagoras’s question is the right one to put to it. Where are the pictures of the twenty-two?

The same mistake has a modern name. In 1943 the statistician Abraham Wald, working for the Statistical Research Group at Columbia University, was asked how to protect bombers better. The data came from aircraft that had returned from missions, with their bullet holes recorded. Wald’s memorandum showed how to reason about the planes that did not return, since the damage on survivors told you where a plane could be hit and still come home (Abraham Wald, A Method of Estimating Plane Vulnerability Based on Damage of Survivors, 1943; reprinted by the Center for Naval Analyses, 1980). The story is usually told in a simplified form, but the principle is exact: the cases you can see have been filtered by the outcome you are trying to explain.

Try it: the testimony machine

Below are twelve imaginary congregations of thirty children each. None of them runs any programme at all. Each child simply has a small chance of becoming a doctor, set by the slider. Press the button to let ten years pass, and count how many congregations end up with a doctor to point to.

The chances on the slider are illustrative, not statistics about any country or community. The machine’s point holds at any of them: with thirty children and even a small chance each, a large share of congregations will have a success to show, having done nothing to produce it. The arithmetic: with a 3 per cent chance each, the probability that at least one of thirty succeeds is 1 − 0.97³⁰, about 60 per cent.

The false balance

Proverbs does not have statistics in mind. It has scales in a market, and the Law behind it is specific: “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small … But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight” (Deuteronomy 25:13–15). The cheat kept two sets of weights, one for buying and one for selling. “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 20:10).

The showcase keeps two sets of weights. A success is weighed as evidence for the programme. A departure is weighed as evidence about the family, or not weighed at all. That is the “divers weights, a great and a small.” Nothing false need be said. The dishonesty lies in the scales.

What an honest report would look like

The author asked what a fair report of all the outcomes would say. It need not be harsh, and it need not be a spreadsheet. Something like this would do.

Read that, and ask what it suggests about the method. It suggests that the programme did not keep most of its children in the faith, and that the church does not know why. That is precisely the information new parents would need, and precisely what the showcase withholds.

Supposing that godliness is gain

The author asked whether the showcase amounts to what Paul calls “supposing that gain is godliness.” The passage should be read whole, because its argument runs for eight verses and ends somewhere unexpected.

If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

1 Timothy 6:3–10.

That correction sharpens the thesis. Paul’s target is not people who think wealth is holy. It is people who think holiness pays: who treat godliness, or the outward practice of it, as the road to a return. That is a fair description of a programme sold to parents on the strength of a medical career.

Is a prestigious, well-paid career for one’s child a form of “gain” in Paul’s sense? In itself, no. Paul does not condemn wealth or work. Later in the chapter he tells Timothy to charge the rich “that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (6:17). Medicine is good work, and a doctor’s income is honest. The career becomes “gain” in the sense of 6:5 at the moment it is offered as the return on godliness: when the reason given for the programme is what it will produce. Then the career is no longer a calling the child may receive from God. It is the dividend the family has been promised.

And look where Paul’s argument ends. Against those who suppose godliness is a means of gain, he does not say that godliness has no gain. He says it has a different one: “godliness with contentment is great gain.” The gain of godliness is contentment, the freedom of the man who “brought nothing into this world” and will “carry nothing out.” That is the one gain a career cannot supply, and a programme sold on careers cannot teach.

Try it: is this gain in Paul’s sense?

Eight things that might be said or done in or around the scenario. For each, is godliness being treated as a means of gain, or not?

0 of 8 sorted

Who mind earthly things

The author’s second passage is Philippians 3:18–19, and it is fierce: “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” The next verse gives the contrast: “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (3:20).

What matters most for the thesis is what Paul wrote just before. The chapter is not a general warning about worldliness. It is Paul setting his own glittering record against Christ. He lists everything that made him, by the standards of his world, the most successful young man of his generation, and then says what he thinks of it.

Try it: Paul’s record, phrase by phrase

Tap each phrase of Philippians 3:5–6 to see what it meant to Paul’s first readers.

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.

Philippians 3:7–8. “Gain” here is kerdos, profit. The word “dung” translates skubala, refuse.

So when Paul turns, ten verses later, to those “who mind earthly things,” he has just shown what minding heavenly things looks like. It is not despising achievement in general; he had achieved a great deal. It is refusing to count it as what makes a life good before God. “Brethren, be followers together of me,” he writes in 3:17, “and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.” The example he has just given is a man who threw away the very credentials a showcase would put on a stage.

Does a church that measures its fruit by its children’s careers “mind earthly things”? The question is not whether the church wants good things for its children. It is what the church holds up as the sign that its work has borne fruit. If the answer, on Sunday, is a place at medical school, then by Paul’s own example the church is displaying what he counted as loss, and calling it gain.

Try it: what is being measured?

Eight things a church might point to as the fruit of its work with young people. For each, is it what Paul would count as fruit, or is it an earthly thing, or could it be either?

0 of 8 sorted

The same structure, a different prize

The thesis claims that the scenario is the prosperity gospel with the reward changed. To test that, the prosperity gospel needs a definition that its critics did not invent for the occasion. The Lausanne Theology Working Group, a body of the worldwide evangelical Lausanne Movement, met at Akropong in Ghana with African theologians to consider prosperity teaching, and published its statement in January 2010.

We define prosperity gospel as the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the “sowing of seeds” …

Lausanne Theology Working Group, A Statement on the Prosperity Gospel, 16 January 2010. Among its affirmations, the statement rejects the idea “that wealth is always a sign of God’s blessing,” and the idea “that poverty or illness or early death, is always a sign of God’s curse.”

Take the definition apart and it has five pieces: a human act (faith, confession, giving); an earthly reward (health, wealth); a link that makes the reward follow the act; testimonies of people who received it, as proof; and, when the reward does not come, an explanation that places the failure in the person. Now put the scenario through the same five.

Try it: change the reward

Choose a reward. Watch which parts of the formula change.

The reward changes. The act changes slightly, from sowing a seed to joining a programme. Everything else is the same: the link between act and reward, the testimony as proof, the explanation for failure. If the classic prosperity gospel is wrong, it is not wrong because its reward is money. It is wrong because it turns faithfulness into a transaction with an earthly payout. Changing the payout does not touch the error.

Augustine saw why God does not run the world that way, sixteen centuries ago, writing after the sack of Rome to Christians who asked why the faithful had suffered with everyone else.

And so of the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both; … if He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that such were the only rewards of His service; and such a service would make us not godly, but greedy rather, and covetous.

Augustine, The City of God, Book I, chapter 8 (written c. 413); trans. Marcus Dods, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 2.

“Not godly, but greedy rather.” That is 1 Timothy 6:5 in Augustine’s words. A service rewarded by earthly goods trains its servants to want the goods. A programme rewarded by careers trains its families to want the careers.

This site’s earlier dossier on the prosperity gospel, Have You Opened a Favor Account? (Dossier 38), traced how the bargain became an account, funded by each prayer and gift. The scenario adds a feature the classic version lacks: the account is in the child’s name, and the parent is making the deposits.

Same, or greater, peril?

The author went further than “the same.” He said the hidden version poses “the same or greater perils.” That claim should be weighed, not assumed. There are reasons on both sides.

The author’s view is offered as his opinion, and the reader can weigh the two lists. What the lists cannot change is the structure. A promise made by implication is still a promise; a reward changed is still a reward.

The lost sheep, reversed

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Luke 15:4–7.

Notice that the parable ends in a celebration. The shepherd calls in his friends and neighbours, and there is joy in heaven. Jesus is not against a church being glad in public. But look at whom the shepherd celebrates. Not the sheep that never strayed, and certainly not the finest of the ninety-nine. He celebrates the one that was lost and is found.

The scenario turns the parable inside out. In Luke, one is lost out of a hundred, and the shepherd leaves everything to find it. In the scenario, most are lost, and the church holds up the one that did best. The celebration is real, but it is aimed at the wrong sheep, and the search has not begun.

Ezekiel’s rebuke of Israel’s shepherds is precise about what they failed to do: “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? … The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost” (34:2, 4). And God’s answer is to do it himself: “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken” (34:16).

Ezekiel distinguishes the sheep that are “lost” from those “driven away.” The scenario has both. Some children drifted, as young people do. Some, by their own account, were driven: they say their experience at church is the reason they left. A shepherd may not be to blame for every stray. He is answerable for the ones he drove off. This site’s Dossier 11, How Many Did You Drive Away?, asked what Scripture says a teacher answers for in the people his teaching sends away; the scenario is a case of it.

Scripture keeps an honest ledger

If the showcase were right, that a ministry should speak only of its successes, Scripture would be the worst-edited book in the world. It records its losses, often in the same breath as its triumphs, and often from the leaders’ own pens.

Try it: what does Scripture say happened?

Seven departures recorded in the New Testament. For each, what does the text give as the reason, or the outcome?

Jesus himself lost a crowd. After the discourse on the bread of life, “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” (John 6:66–67). The Gospel does not hide it. Paul, writing what is probably his last letter, lists the people who left him by name. A church that tells only its successes is not following the reporting habits of the New Testament.

What honest attention to the ones who left would look like

The author asked what pastoral attention to the children who left would look like, including listening to their reasons. The first step is the one the showcase makes impossible: counting them. The second is asking. Young people who leave church will usually say why, if someone asks without an agenda. In the Lifeway survey cited in Part I, the most common specific reasons given by those who had stopped attending included moving away to college (34 per cent), church members who seemed “judgmental or hypocritical” (32 per cent), no longer feeling connected (29 per cent) and disagreement with the church’s stance on political or social questions (25 per cent). Some of those are about life changing. Some are about the church. Only listening can tell which is which.

A letter like that costs a church something the showcase never pays: the risk of hearing that the programme itself was part of the problem. That risk is the price of being a shepherd rather than an exhibitor.

Who gets the credit?

Getting into medical school depends on many things: ability, years of hard work, good schools and teachers, a family able to support the long training, the child’s own choices, and a measure of timing and luck. A church programme may have played a part. But the showcase gives the impression that it played the part, and that is a claim about cause made on the evidence of a single case.

Try it: divide the credit

Use the sliders to say how much you think each thing contributed to one young woman’s place at medical school. The bars show your division as shares of the whole. Then see how the showcase divides it.

Scripture has a sharp word for claiming credit that belongs elsewhere. Moses warned Israel, about to enter a land of plenty: “And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17–18). Paul asked the Corinthians, who were ranking themselves by their teachers, “what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). And he described his own work, and Apollos’s, in a way no showcase could use: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (3:6–7).

When Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey they gave a report, and its grammar is worth noticing: “they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles” (Acts 14:27). God is the subject. The missionaries are the instruments. That is the honest form of a church’s good news.

Heads the method, tails the parents

If the church credits success to its method, how does it account for the children who left? The author suspected the answer: quietly, the failures are put down to the parents’ lack of commitment. They did not come to enough meetings. They let the child skip the youth camp. They were not fully on board.

Whatever is said about any particular family, the structure of the explanation is the problem. If every success is evidence for the method, and every failure is evidence against the family, then no outcome could ever count against the method. Nothing that happens to a child can show the programme does not work. A claim that no possible result could disprove is not being tested by results at all. It is being protected from them.

This site has met the pattern twice before. In Heads I Win, Tails You Lose (Dossier 42), a preacher’s visit is credited if the sick man lives, and God’s will is cited if he dies. In Job’s Friends Were Sure Too (Dossier 16), misfortune is read as testing for the godly and judgement for the ungodly, and the verdict is decided by who the sufferer is. The scenario adds a third variation: success is read as the method’s fruit, failure as the family’s fault.

Try it: how would the showcase explain this?

Eight outcomes from the illustration in Part I. For each, how would a church following Position S be likely to account for it? The answers are the page’s reading of the pattern, not a report of any church.

Job’s friends made the same move with suffering. Eliphaz asked, “who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?” (Job 4:7). If Job was suffering, Job must have sinned. Their theology could not be wrong, because any evidence against it was reinterpreted as evidence against Job. God’s verdict at the end of the book is not on Job but on them: “ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right” (42:7).

Parents’ hopes as a lever

Parents want their children to do well. It is one of the most natural and honourable desires there is, and the page has no quarrel with it. But a desire that strong can be used. Peter warns of false teachers who “shall bring in damnable heresies,” and adds: “And many shall follow their pernicious ways … And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2 Peter 2:1–3). To make merchandise of someone is to treat him as stock: something to be gained by trading on what he wants.

The scenario does not need feigned words. A true story, told selectively, does the work. That is why the author thinks it harder to challenge than the open version: no sentence in it is false. But the effect on the parent is the one Peter describes. The family is drawn in by what it hopes to get.

Jesus faced this exact situation and refused to use it. After he fed the five thousand, the crowd followed him across the lake. He told them why: “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life” (John 6:26–27). He then taught them something hard, and it was after this, not before, that “many of his disciples went back” (6:66). He could have kept the crowd by giving them more bread. He let it go rather than keep it on those terms.

What it teaches the children

The parents are not the only ones who learn from the showcase. Every child in the room hears what the church holds up, and draws a conclusion about what faith is for. In Jesus’ parable of the sower, two kinds of ground receive the word gladly and then lose it.

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended. And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

Mark 4:16–19.

A faith taught as the route to success is planted in both kinds of ground at once. It has no root of its own, because its reason for existing is outside it, in the result. And it grows up among the thorns, since “the deceitfulness of riches” and “the lusts of other things” are the very things being held up. When the success does not come (and for most children it will not come in the form displayed), the faith has nothing left to stand on. The child does not conclude that the showcase was wrong. He concludes that faith was.

The showcase also places a weight on the child who succeeded. She has become the church’s evidence. If she fails an examination, leaves medicine, struggles with her faith, or simply wants to be an ordinary member of the congregation, she now does so as the advertisement. Nobody asked her whether she wished to be one.

Try it: what does a child learn from this?

Eight things a child in the scenario might hear. All are composed by this page and quoted from no one. For each, what would a child most likely learn about faith?

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No promise of earthly success

The showcase implies a promise. Has God made it? Scripture’s answer is unusually consistent. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes looked at the world as it is and saw that results do not follow ability, effort or wisdom with any reliability: “time and chance happeneth to them all.” Jesus said the same of the Father’s gifts: “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

Hebrews 11, the chapter of the faithful, does not end with success. After the victories (“who through faith subdued kingdoms … obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions”) it turns without a pause: “And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder … being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) … And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise” (11:33, 36–39). The same faith; opposite outcomes; the same commendation.

The book of Job is a long refutation of reading God’s favour from results. Job’s friends assumed that outcomes reveal standing before God, and God rebuked them for it (42:7). And Psalm 73 is the confession of a believer who nearly lost his faith because the results pointed the wrong way: “For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (73:3), “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (73:17).

Try it: faithful, and how did it go?

Eight faithful people in Scripture. For each, how did life go for them on earth?

Godly parents, wayward children

Scripture is also candid that faithful parents do not guarantee faithful children. Eli’s sons “were sons of Belial; they knew not the LORD” (1 Samuel 2:12). Samuel, who rebuked Eli, appointed his own sons judges, and “his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre” (8:3). David’s son Absalom raised a rebellion against him. Hezekiah, one of the best kings of Judah, was succeeded by Manasseh, one of the worst (2 Kings 21:1–9). If a programme could guarantee children’s outcomes, these fathers would have found it.

The verse most often read as a guarantee is Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This site’s Dossier 54, Even God Has Prodigals, examined it at length. Proverbs are general wisdom about how things usually go, not promises about how they must. Proverbs 26:4–5, which give opposite advice about answering a fool in two consecutive verses, show that the book itself expects to be read that way. And the verse speaks of the way the child should go, not the career he should have.

Try it: promise, proverb or something else?

Eight texts that are sometimes read as promising earthly success to the faithful. For each, what kind of text is it, read in its context?

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What “doing well” means

The showcase does not only claim that the programme helps children do well. It defines doing well. On its definition, the young woman at medical school has done well, and the young man who fixes boilers, faithful in his church and kind to his neighbours, has not done well enough to be mentioned. Scripture measures differently.

When Paul describes what the Spirit produces in a life, he lists nine things, and none is a status: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22–23). When he tells the Corinthians how to think of their stations in life, he tells them to stay where God called them: “But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk … Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God” (1 Corinthians 7:17, 24). Those he wrote to were mostly ordinary people: “not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise … That no flesh should glory in his presence” (1:26–29).

The body passage goes further. It does not merely say every member is needed. It says the Church is to give its greatest honour to the members the world honours least: “Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour” (12:22–23). A showcase that honours the most prestigious outcome has the instruction exactly backwards.

The Reformation gave this a name, the doctrine of vocation. Luther put it most sharply in 1520, against the idea that religious work outranked ordinary work: the works of monks and priests, however holy, “do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field,” and are measured by faith alone (The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520; Luther’s Works 36:78). If the priest’s work is no higher than the farmer’s, neither is the surgeon’s. This site’s Dossier 12, How Involved Are You at Church?, set out the doctrine more fully.

James names what happens when a congregation ranks its members by status: “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel … And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place … Are ye not then partial in yourselves?” (James 2:1–4). The gold ring of James’s day is the white coat of ours. And Jesus’ own verdict is the bluntest: “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

Try it: who would be mentioned on a Sunday?

Eight of the thirty, ten years on. All are composed by this page. For each, would a church following Position S be likely to hold them up? Then read what Scripture says of them.

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The case for the other side

The author asked that the case for the other side be presented at full strength and weighed fairly. It has five parts, and each is real.

1. Celebration is commanded

“Rejoice with them that do rejoice.” A family whose daughter has worked for years and won a place at medical school is rejoicing, and the church should rejoice with them. “Or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). A church that refused to mention her for fear of seeming to boast would be failing her.

2. Church involvement can genuinely help children

A congregation gives a child adults who know her name, habits of attention and discipline, and a community that expects things of her. There is research to support the idea that this matters. A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2018, by Ying Chen and Tyler VanderWeele of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, followed more than 5,000 young people for eight to fourteen years. Those who had attended religious services regularly as children and adolescents were, in early adulthood, 18 per cent more likely to report higher happiness, 29 per cent more likely to volunteer and 33 per cent less likely to use illicit drugs than those who had not.

3. The church may never claim cause

The church in the scenario may never say that its programme made the young woman a doctor. It may simply mention her often, because she is a joy to them. Parents may draw the conclusion on their own.

4. Young people leave for many reasons

Not every departure is the church’s fault. Paul lost Demas, and did not blame himself: “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica” (2 Timothy 4:10). The Lifeway survey in Part VI found that the most common single reason for dropping out was moving away to college.

5. Parents share responsibility

The family is the first school of faith. If a church is not wholly to blame for the children who leave, it is not wholly to credit for the ones who stay. Parents carry much of both.

Weighing it

Put the five together and ask the author’s question: is the problem the celebration, or the implied promise combined with silence about everyone else? The case for the other side answers it. Every one of the five points defends celebration, or defends the church against blame for departures. None defends the implied promise. None defends the silence. Point 2, the strongest, is an argument for an honest count, since it rests on one. And Romans 12:15, the text that commands the celebration, finishes with “weep with them that weep.” A church that does the first half on stage and leaves the second half undone has not obeyed the verse it is quoting.

Try it: celebration or promise?

Eight things a church might say about its young people. All are composed by this page. For each, decide whether it implies a promise to other families, and whether it gives the whole picture or a selection. Each statement then takes its place in the grid.

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What the narrow point proves

The author asked that the page be exact about what the argument proves. The scenario is hypothetical. It does not show that any real church’s programme is harmful, or that any real church’s leaders are cynical. A church can fall into the pattern without intending to, simply by telling the stories people like to hear and not telling the ones they do not. Nothing on this page reads anyone’s motives.

What the argument tests is a pattern: selective testimony combined with an implied promise of earthly reward. On that narrower question the evidence runs one way. The pattern treats one case as evidence, which is a false balance. It offers godliness as a means to an earthly return, which is what Paul calls supposing godliness to be gain. It has every structural feature of the prosperity gospel except the currency of the reward. And it cannot be falsified, because the failures are assigned to the families.

Try it: does the argument prove this?

Eight claims. Does the argument of this page establish each one, or not?

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How a church could report its outcomes honestly

The author asked the page to show how a church could report honestly. Five practices would do most of it, and none is costly except in pride.

A test for any testimony

Seven questions to ask when a church, a school or anyone else holds up a success story. Think of one you have heard recently and answer each. The page records nothing.

Your verdict

Two questions. Nothing is recorded.

Your answers, revisited

Here are the ten questions you answered before reading, with what the sources say. If you skipped them, go back to the quiz, lock in your answers, and return.

Check it yourself

Fifteen items. Nearly everything here is free and online. If you read only three, read the first three. If you do only one thing, do the last.

1. 1. 1 Timothy 6. Read this first. Ten minutes. Read the whole chapter and note every time the word “gain” or a word about riches appears, and what Paul sets against it.
2. 2. Philippians 3. Read this first. Ten minutes. Read from verse 1 to verse 21 and mark the list of credentials in verses 5–6. Then read verses 18–20 again.
3. 3. Luke 15 and Ezekiel 34. Read these first. Fifteen minutes. Note who is celebrated in each of Luke’s three parables, and what Ezekiel’s shepherds failed to do.
4. 4. On honest measures: Leviticus 19:35–36; Deuteronomy 25:13–16; Proverbs 11:1; 16:11; 20:10, 23; 2 Corinthians 4:1–2; 8:16–21.
5. 5. On gain and contentment: Deuteronomy 8:10–18; Jeremiah 45:5; Luke 12:13–21; John 6:24–71; 1 Corinthians 3:5–9; 4:7; Philippians 4:10–13; 2 Peter 2:1–3.
6. 6. On outcomes that are not promised: Job 4–5 and 42:7–8; Psalms 37 and 73; Ecclesiastes 9:11; Matthew 5:43–48; 6:25–34; Mark 10:28–31; Hebrews 11:32–40.
7. 7. On departures recorded in Scripture: John 6:60–71; Acts 13:13; 15:36–40; 2 Timothy 1:15; 2:16–18; 4:9–18; Colossians 4:10; Philemon 24.
8. 8. On vocation and the respect of persons: 1 Corinthians 1:26–31; 7:17–24; 12:12–27; Galatians 5:22–23; Colossians 3:22–24; James 2:1–9; Luke 16:15.
9. 9. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, Book III, section 89, the story of Diagoras at Samothrace. Free in the Loeb translation at LacusCurtius.
10. 10. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum (1620), Book I, Aphorisms 45–52, the “idols of the tribe.” Free in the Spedding translation online.
11. 11. Augustine, The City of God, Book I, chapters 8–10, on why good and ill fall to the just and unjust alike. Free at New Advent.
12. 12. Lausanne Theology Working Group, A Statement on the Prosperity Gospel (2010). Free at lausanne.org.
13. 13. Lifeway Research, “Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church as Young Adults” (15 January 2019), and Ying Chen and Tyler VanderWeele, “Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood,” American Journal of Epidemiology (2018). Read both for what they measure and what they do not.
14. 14. Earlier dossiers: 56 (the ladder of dedication), 38 (the prosperity gospel as an account), 42 (heads I win, tails you lose), 16 (outcomes read as verdicts), 54 (“Train up a child”), 12 (vocation), 11 (the ones driven away), 46 (a lie without words).
15. 15. One count. Do this one. Think of a church, school or group you know well, and of the young people who came through it ten years ago. Write down every outcome you know, not only the ones that are talked about. Then ask what that full list says about the place, and whether anyone has ever said it aloud.

The church described on this page is hypothetical and describes no real congregation. Every remark attributed to a pastor, parent, child or church member is composed for illustration and quoted from no one. No living individual is named on this page as an example of anything. Living researchers are named only as the authors of published studies. This page makes no claim about any particular congregation, criticises no one for becoming a doctor or for hoping a child will, and reads no one’s motives.