A Prosperity Gospel?

I just finished watching the series Civilization: Is the West History presented by Niall Ferguson. Which you can still currently watch in the U.K. on 4oD. In this fascinating series, Ferguson outlines six feature of western civilization that made the west great which he names killer apps: competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. Some of the things he covers were disturbing, such as how Africans were treated at the start of the 20^th century, and some were quirky – how jeans brought down the Berlin wall. But what stuck me the most was in the last episode, apart from the inexplicable (that is if you deny the triune God) growth of Christianity in China, was that as an atheist Ferguson was bemoaning the decline of the protestant work ethic and the moral vacuum at the heart of our society. This has got me thinking: does the gospel lead to prosperity?

No! Not in the sense of the money preachers: that with enough faith you'll be rolling in the money. But in a more general sense. The sense that we should work hard as for the Lord, that we shouldn't hanker after material wealth, that the physical world isn't intrinsically bad and inferior to the spiritual, and the wisdom contained in proverbs encouraging saving and hard work. These just relate to the work ethic, but what about individual rights and science? Contrary to the view of Furguson, who sees religion as holding back scoiety, wasn't the birth of science in the west the result of the Christian worldview?  And this quote about rights seems to have some rather Christian assumptions 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  U.S. Declaration of Independence.

I don't think that the gospel is responsible for all of Ferguson's killer apps. For example, I don't see how competition, especially when it results in war is a fruit of the gospel. But enough of Ferguson's killer apps can be related to the Bible's worldview to ask the question:

Did the Gospel make the West great?

Not that making society prosperous is the Gospel's main purpose. Rather it's purpose is to reconcile us to God through Christ. But did it made the West great as a byproduct of this. That by people being brought into relationship with their creator society's values are made more in tune those of our maker and as a result we prosper.