Posner explains:
The main tenets of Word of Faith are revelation knowledge, through which the believer derives knowledge directly from God, rather than from the senses; identification, through which the believer is inhabited by God and is another incarnation of Jesus; positive confession, or the power of the believer to call things into existence; the right of believers to divine health; and the right of believers to divine wealth. The believer, a "little god," is anointed and therefore can reject reason in favor of revelation, a "higher knowledge that contradicts the senses." It is through revelation knowledge that the Word of Faith movement has created its alternate universe in which rational thought is rejected and where the media, intellectual thought, science, and any type of critical thinking are scorned. Drawing on the Pentecostal tradition of casting out devils, pursuits associated with the Enlightenment are denounced as the work of Satan.
God's Profits introduces the reader to the world of those who preach this unorthodox-even heretical-version of Christianity, and traces some of its significant connections to the wider world, particularly its growing political influence from the Reagan Era to the present. It is, quite literally, its own world, with a totalistic complex of institutions that creates its own all-encompassing bubble of reality, and a hostility to secular government--particularly the IRS-that it would dearly love to replace.
Posner takes us to services, conferences and yes, even TV broadcasts; she introduces us to key figures, such as Paul and Jan Crouch, whose Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) is the money-sucking center of the Word of Faith world, as well as preachers auch as Hagee, Rod Parsley (familiar to many for his close association with Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio), Kenneth Hagin, T.D. Jakes, Mark Hanby, Earl Paulk, Benny Hinn, Eddy Long and Kenneth Copeland; we learn about their mansions, private jets, lawsuits, scandals, political connections and White House meetings, and she offers critical perspectives from sociologists to conservative theologians to disillusioned former insiders, former "golden boy" Carlton Pearson, rejected since he himself rejected the notion of Hell, and family members of those who have been bilked, including the daughter of one woman-Bonnie Parker-who died of cancer after ten years of paying tens, perhaps hundreds of thousand of dollars in "tithes," but never once sought medical treatment.
While the Pentacostal tradition thrived amongst the left behinds of the industrial age, those who rejected material progress as much as it had rejected them, the neo-Pentocostals have embraced materialism with a vengeance. They are hyper-consumerist to the core. They retain the Pentacostal contempt for the logic of modernism, empiricism, and material progress. But the attitude toward the goodies has done a 180, while the contempt for the logic remains unchanged.
The Reagan era was a watershed era for Word of Faith, Posner explains, and its appeal crossed racial lines, Posner notes:
Sociologist Milmon F. Harrison, who has documented the increasing popularity of Word of Faith among African Americans, writes that "the harsh realities of Reagan-era economic policies for the nation's most vulnerable were very different form what was being portrayed of American life byh the mass entertainment media. Popular culture of the time seemed to be shaped by the mass media procuders' obsession with glorifying consumption through many highly successful television programs." These programs included Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Dynasty, Dallas, Falcon Crest, Miami Vice, and the popular porgram that symbolized black upward mobility, The Cosby Show. According to Harrison, "the reality of life in many African-American families belied the Regan administration's claims.... of unbridled upward mobility and access to wealth and prosperity for all who worked hard." As a result, Word of Faith offered "a shining hope and an answer to the question why some people (especially born-again Christians) were not prospering in the midst of so much wealth. The answer was that those people had not been taught what the Bible really says about wealth and who should possess it. What appeared to be impossible through mere hard work and the secular opportunity structure God's favor could make possible for believers who know they are in Christ."
But it's not just the desperate it appeals to. Word of Faith fills a vital ideological niche. The wider world of religious conservatives has always harbored dangerous, "socialist" tendencies-at least potentially, as can be clearly seen in Bible passages such as Matthew 25:
37 "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40 "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Indeed, the last several years has seen increasing signs that evangelicals-particularly younger ones-are increasingly broadening their scope of moral vision, and this can be extremely problematic for the business wing of the GOP. Not so with the Word of Faith, as Posner explains:
Politically, Word of Faith is an essentially conservative movement that benefits from conservative policies. Conservative evangelicals generally are opposed to abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and the separation of church and state-the bedrock of the so-called values voters. But followers of Word of Faith also preach an economic message that is inherently conservative. The prosperity gospel doesn't need regulation or legislation. A believer doesn't need the government to regulate corporations. If you don't make enough money, it's your own fault for not believing enough, for not speaking the word, for not claiming what is divinely yours. A believer doesn't need a government safety net if things go wrong. As Parsley says, "The best thing government can do to help the poor is to get out of the way. If government reduced taxes, remove industrial restraints, eliminated wage controls, and abolished subsidies, tariff[s], and other constraints on free enterprise, the poor would be helped in a way that [Aid to Families with Dependent Children], Social Security, and unemployment insurance could never match." Of course he wants his followers to believe they can get out of poverty by believing in his message. His gospel is the ultimate laissez-faire capitalism, regulated only by the invisible hand of God..
It would have been easy for Posner to have focused more intensely on the duping of innocents, particularly tragic figures such as Bonnie Parker, or to have delved deeper into various sexual or financial scandals that have plagued the upper echelons of the Word of Faith world. But her intent is more balanced, to introduce a complex and contradictory world that is seamlessly embedded in our own, virtually without notice from most of those outside its reach. She warns that this world is not going away, simply because the religious right has lost one election cycle, or because one of the lesser lights had his ministry destroyed by sex scandals. There is a deeply entrenched alternate logic at work here that demands serious attention, if nothing else because of the sheer numbers of people it has reached.
This is not to say that the Word of Faith world isn't riddled with contradictions-it is. Ted Haggard makes a brief cameo appearance, but not to illustrate hypocrisy or sordidness. There's plenty of that to be found among the more major players, whose family values and business integrity generally seem to be no better than your average Republican Congressmember.
There is also a deeply conflicted love-hate relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people, which Posner encounters from a variety of different angles. It's not just that Word of Faith's apocalyptic script calls for loving Israel to death-though that would certainly be more than enough. There is also-particularly evident in the case of Hagee-an envy of Jews supposed mastery of money, which is part of a wider confusion between spreading and denouncing anti-Semitism, sometimes in the very same statements.
Finally, there seems to be a major disconnect between the money hustle at Word of Faith's core and the apocalyptic vision that's always been part of the Pentacostal worldview, and still figures significantly among Word of Faith preachers. For many, Posner explains, the contradiction is easily resolved-the world is ending soon, so send all your money, so I can travel farther and save more souls before the end. But in Hagee's case, there is less a sense of a scam than a bloodthirsty obsession. While Posner quotes Hagee's Washington frontman, David Brog, trying to put a reasonable face on him, it's hard to imagine that anything less than Armageddon would satisfy Hagee, given some of his statements that Posner quotes. Would that someone at ABC/NBC/CBS noticed.
It is worth noting that Word Of Faith is not just opposed to liberal theology. Some of the critics Posner cites are pillars of religious conservatism. One example is Ministry Watch, a Christian watchdog organizations, "run by former Templeton Investments executive Rusty Leonard, whose conservative credentials could not be better evidences than by his membership in the influential Council for National Policy." Posner reports that "Ministry Watch decried the 'shockingly little' amount the network spent on its charitable programs. This huge cash stockpile should be spend on their charitable purpose and not built ever higher each year. Yet, TBN continues to ask donors for more money without disclosing how much they already have.'"
In short, there is plenty here to disturb everyone. At 174 pages, this is not a definitive book, but a provocative one-not in the sensationalist sense, but in the sense of provoking inquiry rather than providing answers. This is not a handbook for how to fight the latest emerging face of the religious right. It is, instead, a wake-up call to draw attention to something that needs far more sustained scrutiny from a much broader range of activists, journalists and the general public at large. |
