The venereal New York Times reports: Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich.
Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.
“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.
Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times.
The preachers barely acknowledged the recession, though they did say it was no excuse to curtail giving. “Fear will make you stingy,” Mr. Copeland said.
But the offering buckets came up emptier than in some previous years, said those who have attended before.
Many in this flock do not trust banks, the news media or Washington, where the Senate Finance Committee is investigating whether the Copelands and other prosperity evangelists used donations to enrich themselves and abused their tax-exempt status. But they trust the Copelands, the movement’s current patriarch and matriarch, who seem to embody prosperity with their robust health and abundance of children and grandchildren who have followed them into the ministry.
At the convention, the preachers — who also included Jesse Duplantis and Jerry Savelle — sprinkled their sermons with put-downs of the government, an overhaul of health care, public schools, the news media and other churches, many of which condemn prosperity preaching.
But mostly the preachers were working mightily to remind the crowd that they are God’s elect. “While everybody else is having a famine,” said Mr. Savelle, a Texas televangelist, “his covenant people will be having the best of times.”
“Any time a worried thought about money pops up in your mind,” Mr. Savelle continued, “the next thing you do is sow”: drop money, like seeds, in “good ground” like the preachers’ ministries. “Stop worrying, start sowing,” he added, his voice rising. “That’s God’s stimulus package for you.”
At that, hundreds streamed down the aisles to the stage, laying envelopes, cash and coins on the carpeted steps.
This is fucking awesome! It's like a scene out of Brazil or India or Italy.
BWAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
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4 comments:
It is really heart breaking to read about these stories and people having blind faith in such sermons and preachers.
In India, this mass following is sometimes attributed to the fact that many are illiterate, but such mass hysteria in USA where the they are educated!
Also, I have an impression that in India, mostly the rich people are big followers of such GURU's because they want to show the masses that the ("ill gotten in most cases")wealth they have got is becuase of their faith in religion and they will all get their too if they follow it.
Education has nothing to do with it. It's psychology.
The preachers are exploiting simple human psychology.
At the heart of it is the perfectly irrational belief that "everybody is special".
No, they are not.
Most are average and hence will lead a perfectly average life and make perfectly average incomes.
Half are below-average and hence will make below-average incomes.
Even if you are "special", among the category of similarly "special" people, chances are you are perfectly average (among the "special" people), and hence will make the average amount of money that "special" people make.
The point is that statistics applies at all levels. To believe that you are immune to a larger economic rationality is complete nonsense.
Also, what is being exploited is the power of "optimism". Most humans are optimistic about their futures.
We'd have to be. If not, we would all kill ourselves.
But there's a difference between rational optimism and complete pie-in-the-sky fantasies.
No, that average secretary will not end up marrying a billionaire. Most likely, she will end up marrying someone perfectly average. If she's lucky, he won't beat her daily, and she might actually be happy.
Nobody likes to hear such blunt truths about their lives, and that's the psychology that's being used to exploit these people.
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