The prosperity gospel — the teaching that financial blessing and physical health are the guaranteed right of every faithful Christian — has never been more visible in Uganda. From billboard advertisements promising miracle wealth to sermons framing poverty as a spiritual failure, the prosperity message has become one of the defining features of Ugandan Christianity in the 21st century. Is it a faithful reading of Scripture, or is it causing lasting harm?

Proponents argue that the prosperity gospel has brought genuine hope to millions of Ugandans crushed by poverty. They point to communities where faith has inspired people to believe for more, to work harder, and to give generously. There is something right about the insight that God is not glorified by his people's suffering, and that faith should animate all areas of life including economic life.

But critics — and there are many serious Biblical scholars among them — argue that the prosperity gospel is a fundamental distortion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The prosperity message, they say, reframes the Cross as merely a means to material blessing rather than as the atoning sacrifice for sin. It produces transactional spirituality — giving in order to get — rather than the sacrificial love that characterises authentic discipleship. And perhaps most damagingly, it tells the poor that their poverty is their own spiritual fault, heaping shame on those whom Jesus specifically blessed.

The debate is not academic. Ugandan pastors report that congregation members who have sowed their savings into "miracle offering" envelopes and seen no return are walking away from faith altogether. The prosperity gospel does not merely raise theological questions. It is, in the lives of real Ugandan families, causing real spiritual harm. Uganda's pastors and theologians must find the courage to say so publicly.