I have to confess something. Oh, yeah. Sometimes
when I can't sleep, you know, it's 2 in the morning,
the house is totally quiet, and I'm just scrolling
or flipping through channels, I land on that
side of television. You know the one I'm talking
about. I think I do. Is it the one with the,
uh... The shiny suits, the sets that look like
they're from an 80s game show, and an audience
that's just hanging on every single word. Yes,
that's the one. Exactly. And there's always a
guy on stage, maybe he's sweating a little, pacing,
talking about how God wants to buy me a new car.
A Mercedes, usually. Or how if I just send in,
say, $58 right now, all my debt will just vanish.
And I always stop and watch because, honestly,
to me, it feels like a caricature. It does. Like
a sketch comedy routine. But then you look at
the crowd and there are thousands of people there
and they are not laughing. No, they're not. They're
taking notes. Some are crying. They're writing
checks. They're all in. They are. And that right
there is the disconnect we really need to try
and bridge today. Because it is so easy to turn
the prosperity gospel into a meme. Right. It's
easy to look at those preachers and sneakers
accounts online and laugh at the $5 ,000 shoes
or to just roll your eyes at the private jets.
Of course. But if you dismiss it as just a con.
or just a joke, you're actually missing one of
the most significant and fastest growing shifts
in the modern history of religion. See, that's
what the research you brought in today really
hammered home for me. I walked into this thinking,
okay, this is a deep dive on greedy pastors.
Simple as that. But you're telling me this is
a... A structured theology. Oh, absolutely. Like
with footnotes and a logical system that actually
makes sense to the people who are inside of it.
It has an incredibly rigid internal logic. That's
the key. This isn't just a guy on stage asking
for cash because he wants a new watch. It is
a fundamental, ground -up reimagining of the
entire relationship between a person and God.
How so? It takes faith. which is usually this
abstract, mysterious, spiritual thing, and it
turns it into physics. Physics? Yeah. Input A,
you get output B. It turns the universe into
a machine that you can operate if you just know
the right code. That's the core idea we're going
to orbit today, then. Transactionalism. We're
talking about the claimant movement, the health
and wealth gospel. Or, as the critics, and there
are many, many critics like to call it, blab
it and grab it. Right. But for our deep dives
today, we're going to look past the slogans.
We have a massive stack of history, theology,
sociology right here. We're going to trace how
a, believe it or not, 19th century mind power
cult sort of crashed into American revivalist
Christianity to create a global phenomenon that
tells you God doesn't just want to save your
soul. He wants to fix your credit score. Yeah,
he wants to do it right now. Right now, here
on Earth. Not in the sweet by and by. Right here.
So lay out the mission for us because this thing
is huge. It's not just a Texas phenomenon, is
it? Far from it. While it feels distinctly American,
it has the DNA of American capitalism all over
it. Our sources show that this is actually the
dominant form of Christianity in massive parts
of the world. Like where? Nigeria, South Korea,
Brazil, the Philippines. We are talking about.
tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people. So
our mission is to unpack the mechanics of this
belief. We need to understand the contract theology,
the really strange new thought origins, which
is a huge plot twist we'll get to. And, you know,
the real world fallout of believing that your
bank account is a direct reflection of your faith.
And we should probably say up front, we are going
to walk a fine line here. To an insider, this
is a message of profound empowerment. It's hope
in what can feel like a hopeless world. It is.
To an outsider or a critic, it's heresy. It's
exploitation. We aren't here to preach, but we
are here to look at the evidence on both sides
of that argument. So let's start at the very
bottom of the stack, the theology. Okay, let's
get into the weeds. You used that word transactional
a minute ago. But when I look at the source material,
the word they use is much more... biblical they
use the word covenant they do now i grew up going
to church sometimes and covenant usually just
meant a promise you know like god promises to
be good to humanity that sort of thing that's
the traditional mainstream view yes In standard
Christian theology, a covenant is a relationship
that's initiated by God. It's vertical. He's
up here. You're down there. You are the petitioner.
God is the king. So you ask and maybe he answers.
You ask and God answers yes, no, or wait. But
the prosperity gospel completely flattens that
out. It relies on a very specific, almost legalistic
interpretation of that word covenant. Legalist
how? What do you mean? They view the Bible as
essentially a binding contract. Like a business
contract. Exactly. Think of it less like a prayer
and more like contract law. If you hire a contractor
to come fix your roof and you pay him the agreed
upon amount. He must fix your roof. It's not
optional. Right. If he doesn't, I can sue him.
He's in breach of contract. Exactly. Now, take
that entire dynamic and apply it to the creator
of the universe. Wow. Prosperity teachers argue
that God has voluntarily bound himself to these
rules. If you do your part, if you have the faith,
if you speak the right words, if you plant the
seed money we'll talk about later, God must respond.
He doesn't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice.
He is legally obligated by his own word to bless
you with health and wealth. That sounds incredibly
bold. To say God has to do something, that feels
like it completely flips the power dynamic on
its head. To a traditional theologian, it sounds
unbelievably arrogant. It borders on blasphemy
because it removes God's sovereignty. It implies
God is no longer the ultimate decision maker
in the universe. Right. But now... Flip it around.
Look at it from the believer's perspective. Think
about how empowering that is. How so? It means
the universe isn't random. It means your poverty
isn't just bad luck. It means you aren't at the
mercy of some mysterious deity who might just
be having a bad day. It's a system. And if it's
a system, you can learn to work the system. It
turns God into a cosmic vending machine. That
is the exact metaphor critics use. And you know
what? It fits the theology perfectly. You don't
have a relationship with a vending machine. You
don't ask the vending machine how its day was.
You put in the code D4 and you expect to get
the Snickers bar. If you put in the money and
the Snickers doesn't drop, you don't think, oh,
the machine works in mysterious ways. You think.
The machine is broken or I did something wrong.
Exactly. The machine is broken or I didn't put
the money in right. And in this analogy, the
money you're putting in, is it literal money?
Very often, yes. But it's also faith and positive
confession. We'll get to the specific mechanics
of that in a little bit. But this all stems from
how they view the atonement. Yeah. You know,
the cross. Jesus' death. Right. The absolute
core of Christianity. Forgiveness of sins. That's
the whole point. Standard theology says Jesus
died to fix the sin problem between humanity
and God. Prosperity theology takes that and extends
it. They argue that Jesus' death wasn't just
for sin. Okay. It was also for the alleviation
of sickness and poverty. They view poverty not
as a systemic economic issue or lack of opportunity,
but as a curse. A curse, like a literal spiritual
affliction. Yes, a curse that dates all the way
back to the Garden of Eden. The argument goes
like this. Jesus broke the curse on the cross.
Therefore, if you as a believer are living in
poverty, or if you are sick, you are living in
a reality that Jesus already abolished. So you're
essentially leaving money on the table. You're
leaving your inheritance unclaimed. You have
a legal right to be wealthy and healthy. You
just aren't activating it. That puts a tremendous,
almost unbearable amount of pressure on the individual.
If I'm broke, it's not because of the economy
or my boss or systemic issues. It's because I
am personally failing to claim my rights. Precisely.
And that right there is the double -edged sword
of this theology. On one hand, it offers you
total agency. I can fix this. But on the other,
it assigns you total blame. I caused this. But
they have to be backing this up with the Bible,
right? They can't just be making it up out of
thin air. They're reading from the same book
as the Methodists and the Catholics and everyone
else. So where are they finding this contract?
They rely on what theologians call proof texts.
These are a handful of specific verses that serve
as the absolute pillars for the entire system.
You take them out, and the whole building collapses.
Okay, lay them on us. What are the big ones?
The heavyweight champion, the one you will hear
at almost every single offering time in these
churches, is from the Old Testament. It's Malachi
3, verse 10. Okay, I think I know this one. Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse. That's the
one. The full verse says, bring the whole tithe
into the storehouse and test me now in this,
says the Lord. If I will not throw open for you
the windows of heaven and pour out for you a
blessing until it overflows. Windows of heaven.
I mean, that's a beautiful image. It is a beautiful
image. But in this context, it is used as a mechanical
guarantee. God literally says, test me. Prosperity
preachers latch onto that. They'll say, this
is the only place in the entire Bible where God
tells you to test him. So it's a challenge. It's
presented as an investment opportunity. Tithing,
giving that 10 % of your income, is the lever
that opens the window. It guarantees a return
on investment. It's not charity. It's a deposit.
Okay, so that covers the money part. What about
the name it and claim it idea? Is there actually
a verse for, I want a Lexus and therefore I shall
have one? Well, the one they would point to is
Mark 11 .24. It says, Therefore I tell you, whatever
you ask for in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours. Believe that
you have received it. So past tense. The tense
is critical. You have to believe you already
have it, even if you can't see it yet. It sounds
a lot like modern visualization techniques or
sports psychology. It really does, like manifesting.
It's very close to that. Then you have 3 John
1 .2, which says, Beloved, I pray that in all
respects you may prosper and be in good health,
just as your soul prospers. Now that just sounds
like a nice greeting, you know, like in a letter.
I hope this letter finds you well. To most biblical
scholars, that is exactly what it is. It's a
standard ancient greeting, like signing off an
email with best regards. But in this movement,
every single word is mined for its literal meaning.
They interpret prosper as material financial
wealth. Period. OK. And finally, the big one
is John 10 .10, where Jesus says he came that
they may have life and have it to the full or
abundant life. See, when I hear abundant life,
my mind goes to, you know, peace, a loving family,
a sense of purpose, spiritual things. And that
is the traditional historical view that abundance
refers to spiritual fullness, grace, a deep connection
with the divine. Prosperity theology just asks
why spiritualize it. Right. Their argument is
if God owns the cattle on a thousand. hills,
why would his idea of abundance be you living
in a shack but feeling happy about it? To them,
abundance means abundance. Cars, houses, health,
money, influence, all of it. It's a very, very
literal interpretation applied to verses that
might be metaphors. It's a very specific lens.
But, and this is where we have to pivot, we need
to ask where that lens came from. Because I think
most people, myself included, before I dug into
this, assume this is just traditional Pentecostalism
that got a little too excited about money. Yeah,
that was my assumption. Old timey revival religion
that got supercharged by capitalism. That is
not the whole story. It's not even close. This
is where the story takes a turn that honestly,
it really surprised me when I first read the
research. OK. The historian Kate Bowler, who
has done probably the definitive academic work
on this, she identifies three distinct streams
that merge together to form the prosperity gospel.
Three streams. OK, walk us through them. Stream
one is Pentecostalism. That's the obvious one.
That's where the movement gets its energy, its
belief in miracles, its emphasis on the supernatural,
the idea that God is active in the world right
now. OK, that makes total sense. That's the engine.
Stream two is what she calls American pragmatism.
This is the whole muscular Christianity of the
late 19th and early 20th century. Think Andrew
Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth. It's the ideology
of individualism, upward mobility, pull yourself
up by your bootstraps. The American dream, basically,
wrapped in a sermon. Exactly. The belief that
godliness and financial success are linked. But
then we hit stream three. This is the plot twist.
Because if you trace the theological DNA of the
prosperity gospel back far enough, You don't
end up in a church. Where do you end up? You
end up in a metaphysical movement from the late
1800s called New Thought. New Thought. I've never
heard of that. Is that like a cult? What is that?
Think more like The Secret or if Ralph Waldo
Emerson had a fever dream. It was this philosophical
and spiritual movement in the 1880s and 90s that
believed the physical world is secondary to the
mental world. They taught that your mind literally
creates your reality. So think positive. It's
the great -grandfather of every positive thinking
and self -help book you've ever seen. But they
took it to an extreme. If you are sick, it's
because you have sick thoughts. If you are poor,
you have poverty thoughts. Change your mind and
you will change your physical reality. Okay,
but here's the part I don't get. How does that
connect to Christianity? That sounds like a completely
different religion. It was. Here's the crazy
part. This was not Christian. In fact, many New
Thought teachers didn't believe in a personal
God at all. They believed in a universal mind
or cosmic intelligence, a force. So wait, hold
on. You're telling me that a Baptist minister
in the 1890s was just hanging out with metaphysical
mind cultists? How on earth did universal mind
magic get into the Baptist church? Those two
groups do not seem like they'd hang out at the
same parties. They absolutely do not. Unless
you have a man named E .W. Kenyon. Kenyon, I
saw his name in the notes. He's the bridge figure.
He is the missing link. He's the patient zero
of this whole thing. Kenyon was a Baptist minister,
very traditional in some ways. But in the 1890s,
he went to a place called the Emerson College
of Oratory in Boston. Okay. And Emerson College
at that time was a hotbed of new thought ideas.
So while he's there, he starts soaking up these
concepts. He hears, your words create your reality.
He hears the mind has power over matter. And
a light bulb goes off. He thinks, wait a minute.
What if I combine that with Bible verses? Oh,
wow. So he essentially laundered occult mysticism
through Christian theology. He would never, ever
have admitted that, of course. He claimed it
was all just direct revelation from God. But
historians like Kate Bowler have put his writing
side by side with new thought literature from
the time. And the parallels are obvious. The
phrasing is almost identical in places. He just
rebranded it. It's a genius piece of branding.
He took the law of attraction and he renamed
it the law of faith. He took a concept that was
kind of elitist and weird metaphysical mind power.
And he packaged it in language that a revival
tent congregation could understand. So instead
of manifesting, you're confessing or decreeing.
Exactly. Instead of mental magnetism, it's faith.
And suddenly you have the theological engine
for the entire prosperity gospel. And this was
a huge shift, right? Because the early Pentecostals,
the people speaking in tongues at Azusa Street
in the early 1900s, they weren't exactly chasing
Ferraris. Far from it. The early Pentecostals
were often extremely poor. They were marginalized.
And they viewed the world as a sinking ship.
They were focused on heaven. They thought worldly
wealth as a distraction. Or worse, a dangerous
temptation. Right. Kenyon's influence completely
flipped that script. He taught that believers
have a legal right to divine healing and prosperity.
It wasn't something to hope for. It was something
to demand. So we have the theory, the divine
contract. We have the origin story, this hybrid
of the Bible and mind power. Now let's talk about
the mechanics. If I'm a believer in, say, 1950
or 1980, how do I actually do this? How do I
work the system? You need a mechanism. You need
a way to activate the contract. Yeah. And that
brings us to the post -World War II era and a
man who became a household name, Oral Roberts.
Oral Roberts University. That's the name I know.
He is the pivotal figure in taking these ideas
mainstream. He took Kenyon's concepts, which
were still kind of on the fringe, and he operationalized
them for the masses. He introduced a concept
that would define the movement, seed faith. Seed
faith. This metaphor is everywhere in this world.
And it's brilliant marketing, honestly. Roberts
taught that your donations to his ministry were
not just charity. They weren't just gifts. They
were seeds. Think about the farming metaphor.
If you want a harvest of corn, what do you have
to do? You have to plant the corn kernels in
the ground. You have to give up the kernel to
get the stalk. Exactly. You don't hoard your
corn seed. You bury it in the ground, expecting
a much bigger return. Roberts taught what he
called the blessing pact. He told his followers
that if they gave money to his ministry, they
were planting a seed in the good soil of God's
work. And God would provide the harvest. God,
as the soil, would be obligated to return it
a hundredfold. I read in the notes that in the
early days, he actually offered a money -back
guarantee. Is that true? He did. It's incredible.
He offered to return donations if the donor didn't
receive an unexpected payment from some other
source within a year. That is unbelievably bold.
And it also... It must completely change the
psychology of the person giving the money. It
changes everything. Giving is no longer an act
of selfless support. I want to help this ministry
do its work. It becomes an investment strategy.
You aren't losing money. You are investing it
for a guaranteed high yield. Right. If I told
you that for every dollar you gave me, a magic
ATM around the corner would give you $7 back,
how much money would you give me? Everything
I had. And I'd probably go take out a loan. Exactly.
It gamifies tithing. It makes it a financial
transaction. So that's the money part of the
machine. What about the speech part? You mentioned
words creating reality. Right. That brings us
to the second major mechanism, which is called
positive confession, or more broadly, the word
of faith movement. The father of this particular
branch is generally seen as Kenneth Hagin. He
took Kenyon's ideas and he codified them into
a system. He taught that faith is not just a
belief. It's a law, like gravity. The sources
mention a distinction they make between rhema
and logos. We should probably define those because
they sound like they're straight out of a Greek
philosophy class. They are Greek words, but the
concept they built around them is fairly simple.
In their teaching, logos is the written word,
the Bible sitting on your shelf. It has potential
power. Okay. But rhema is the spoken, activated
word. It's when you take a promise from the logos
and you speak it out loud. Proponents claim that
speaking a rhema word is what releases the power
into the physical world. So you can't just think
it. You have to actually say it out loud. You
have to speak it. You have to say, by his stripes
I am healed. You have to say, my God shall supply
all my needs so I am rich. They believe that
faith in its essence is a confession. And this
is crucial. It works in reverse. If you say,
oh, I'm so sick or I'm always so broke, you are
confessing lack. You are literally creating sickness
and poverty with your own mouth. You're speaking
a curse over your own life. That sounds exhausting.
You'd have to police every single sentence that
comes out of your mouth. It creates a tremendous
amount of anxiety. You're constantly terrified
of saying the wrong thing and negating your blessing.
This all leads to what is maybe the most radical
theological claim in the entire outline, the
little gods doctrine. This sounded absolutely
wild to me when I read it. It is the most controversial
aspect of the movement, and it's where many other
Christians draw a hard line and say, this has
gone too far. What is it? Leaders like Kenneth
Copeland and Frederick Casey Price have taught
that because the Bible says humans are made in
God's image, that means we are essentially duplicates
of God. We are little gods with a lowercase g.
Meaning what? That we have the same power to
create with our words that God had when he said,
let there be light? That is precisely the argument.
They argue that God is a spirit. But he has a
body, and he created Adam to be a physical reproduction
of himself on Earth. And therefore, believers
have that same creative ability. Okay. Frederick
Casey Price has a quote that is honestly shocking
to traditional Christian ears. He said that whether
you succeed or fail in life is not up to God.
Not up to God. How can it not be up to God? His
reasoning was, and I'm paraphrasing here, God
is on vacation. Excuse me. God is on vacation.
God is on vacation. Meaning God has already done
his part. He created the world. He established
the spiritual laws. He sent Jesus to die. He
built the machine and plugged it in. Now it is
up to you. to work the levers. So if you fail?
If you fail, it's because you didn't pull the
lever correctly. It removes God's active moment
-by -moment will from the equation almost entirely.
That puts an immense amount of agency on the
individual. It's the ultimate form of empowerment,
but it's also the ultimate form of loneliness.
If the machine breaks, it's all on you. Exactly
right. Let's shift gears a bit and talk about
how this message spread. Because ideas are one
thing, but the delivery system is everything.
And this movement found the perfect delivery
system for the 20th century. The medium really
is the message here. In the 1960s, Oral Roberts
made a brilliant strategic move. He transitioned
from his tent revival meetings, which were dusty,
hot, and reached a limited audience. To syndicated
television. He cleaned up the image. He absolutely
cleaned it up. He put on a suit. He built a nice
set. He realized that to reach the American masses,
he had to look prosperous and successful. Right.
But then you get figures like Reverend Ike in
the late 60s and 70s. Now, Reverend Ike is a
character. He was based in New York and he was
completely unapologetic about wealth. He didn't
hide it. He flaunted it. The flashy suits, the
Rolls Royces. All of it. He preached what he
called the science of the mind. He's basically
saying, look at me, look at my success. God did
this for me and he'll do it for you too. It was
aspirational. He famously said, the best thing
you can do for the poor is not be one of them.
It's a shocking line, but it perfectly encapsulates
his philosophy. Then in the 1980s, you have the
explosion of cable television and with it, the
Trinity Broadcasting Network. TBN. Right. TBN
created a 247 ecosystem for these preachers.
Suddenly they weren't just on for an hour on
Sunday morning. They were always on. This is
the era of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. And the
PTL scandal where he famously went to prison
for fraud. Right. But despite the scandals, this
era established prosperity theology as the default
setting for Christian television. If you turned
on religious TV in 1988, this is almost certainly
what you saw. And that brings us to the modern
faces, because the style has changed again, hasn't
it? It's not all shouting and sweating and asking
for money for a new jet anymore. No, the modern
version is much more polished, much more palatable.
You have to look at someone like Joel Osteen.
The smiling face of Houston's Lakewood Church.
Osteen represents what you might call a soft
prosperity gospel. He rarely gets into the deep,
weird, doctrinal stuff about being little gods.
He doesn't talk about contracts. He talks about
optimism. The name of his most famous book says
it all. Your Best Life Now. Which sold millions
and millions of copies. Because it's an appealing,
non -threatening message. It feels more like
a Tony Robbins seminar than a Pentecostal revival.
It's often described as moderate. But the underlying
premise that God wants you to be happy, healthy,
and successful now is exactly the same. It's
prosperity light. And you'd contrast that with
someone like Creflo Dollar. Who is much more
hardline. I mean, his name is literally Creflo
Dollar, which you just can't make up. He preaches
the strict contract theology. And then you have
phenomena like Bruce Wilkinson's book, The Prayer
of Jabez. Do you remember that? Oh, I do. It
was everywhere in the early 2000s. It was this
tiny little book. You could read it in 20 minutes.
It was a cultural phenomenon. And all it was
was an invitation for readers to pray a specific
Old Testament prayer every day, explicitly asking
God to enlarge their territory. It mainstreamed
the idea of asking for personal expansion and
prosperity as a core spiritual discipline. So
we have this massive American export. Let's get
to the why. Why does it stick? Especially when,
let's be honest, the mat doesn't always work
out for the people in the pews. Most people who
tithe don't end up with a Ferrari. So why is
this message so popular, particularly among the
poor and working class? This is a crucial question.
And it's easy to be cynical and just say, well,
people are greedy or people are gullible. Yeah.
But the sociologists who study this say it's
much, much deeper than that. It's about empowerment.
Empowerment in what way? If you are poor, if
you're marginalized, if you feel like the entire
economic system is rigged against you and you
have no way out. Yeah. The prosperity gospel
offers you a key. It fundamentally rejects a
victim mentality. It tells you that you have
direct control over your circumstances. It creates
a sense of agency. I can change my situation
by speaking and sowing. Precisely. It gives you
a lever to pull in a world that feels chaotic
and uncontrollable. The Jesuits Antonio Spadaro
and Marcelo Figueroa wrote a fascinating analysis
where they describe it as a reductive version
of the American dream. The idea that prosperity
is the direct result of faith, not just hard
work or luck or privilege. It's the spiritualization
of the American dream. And honestly, for someone
who feels like they have nothing, a lottery ticket
that says God guarantees this will pay out. That's
a very powerful thing to hold on to. It is hope.
It's a tangible strategy for a better life. And
while it has its roots in American economic booms,
it has now found incredibly fertile ground in
the global south. Let's talk about that. Nigeria,
South Korea, the numbers and the sources are
just staggering. In Nigeria, you have figures
like David Oyedepo, who's one of the richest
pastors in the entire world. The growth of Pentecostal
prosperity churches there is explosive. And scholars
point out a fascinating paradox. Which is? The
high levels of government corruption and economic
inequality. in a place like Nigeria, actually
fuel the desire for miracles. How does that work?
Well, when the government fails you and the banking
system fails you and the infrastructure fails
you, where do you turn for help? You turn to
the supernatural. If the earthly contract is
broken every day, you start looking for a divine
one that can't be broken. That makes a lot of
sense. It's a direct response to instability.
What about South Korea? The story there is a
bit different. In South Korea, you have the Yoido
Full Gospel Church, which was founded by Cho
Yong -gi. At one point, it was the single largest
church congregation in the world with hundreds
of thousands of members. And the sources note
a really interesting cultural parallel there.
Something about shamanism. Yes. Anthropologists
have noted that in traditional Korean shamanism,
there is a practice of paying a shaman to perform
rituals to secure blessings or healing or success.
It's a very transactional spiritual practice.
I pay the money. The spirits bless my business.
So the prosperity gospel with its transactional.
seed faith nature, it mapped almost perfectly
onto that existing cultural framework. Exactly.
It didn't feel foreign. It felt like a Christianized,
modernized version of a spiritual system that
was already deeply embedded in the culture. Wow.
And you see it everywhere. It's huge in the Philippines
with the El Shaddai movement, which blends it
with Catholic charismatic traditions. It's massive
in Australia through Hillsong Church, which even
had a prime minister, Scott Morrison, as a member.
It is a true global phenomenon. But there is
a darker side to this belief, beyond just disappointed
hopes. The outline mentions a connection to the
2008 financial crisis in the U .S. Now that feels
like a stretch, blaming a theology for the housing
market crash. It sounds like a stretch, but listen
to the argument that Hannah Rosen made in the
piece for The Atlantic. She went out and interviewed
homeowners and pastors in communities that were
hit hard by foreclosures. And she argued that
prosperity theology was a contributing factor
to the subprime mortgage bubble. How so? Because
it actively encouraged people to take on huge
financial risks based on faith. People were taking
out adjustable rate mortgages they knew they
couldn't afford on paper. Why would they do that?
They were operating on the belief that God would
provide the payment. They would sign the papers
for a massive house and say, I am claiming this
house in faith. They believed God would miraculously
provide a raise or a bonus or a new job. to cover
the payments when they reset. So you sign a predatory
loan because you genuinely believe divine intervention
will pay it off. And the banks at that time were
more than happy to give them the loans. But when
the economy crashed and the payments ballooned,
God didn't make the payments. The foreclosures
happened. It shows how this theology, when it
intersects with high stakes finance, can have
absolutely devastating real world consequences.
Speaking of high stakes finances, we have to
talk about the lifestyle. This is the stuff that
makes the news, the jets. The jet lifestyle.
It is the most visible and most criticized symbol
of the movement's excess. The outline lists Creflo
Dollar campaigning to his followers for a new
Gulfstream G650. Which at the time was a $65
million aircraft. This isn't a little Cessna
to hop between cities. It's the top of the line
corporate jet. And Jesse Duplantis asking his
followers to buy him a $54 million jet. What
was his justification for that? They often argue
it's about efficiency for their global ministries.
I need to travel the world to spread the gospel,
and I can't be waiting in TSA lines with everyone
else. But Kenneth Copeland went even further.
What did he say? He was famously recorded in
an interview saying that flying in a commercial
airplane is like getting in a long tube with
a bunch of demons. He called the other passengers
demons. He implied that the spiritual atmosphere
was polluted and that he couldn't get his sermon
prep done in that environment. He needed the
sanctuary of his private jet to do God's work
effectively. That is certainly a take. But this
kind of excess did eventually catch the attention
of the government. In 2007, Senator Chuck Grassley
launched a probe into six major ministries. He
did. It included Copeland, Dollar, Benny Hinn,
and others. He wanted to know where the money
was going. Were these tax -exempt nonprofits
being used as personal piggy banks for the pastors
and their families? And what was the result of
that investigation? Were there any major changes?
Not really. The conclusion, which came out in
2011, was honestly pretty underwhelming. The
ministries mostly refused to cooperate, citing
religious freedom and the separation of church
and state. And Senator Grassley's final report
basically said that there's no real mechanism
for government regulation and that self -regulation
by the churches themselves was the preferred
option. Self -regulation. So essentially, please
police yourselves. Which? Given that the theology
itself says that extreme wealth is a sign of
God's favor is highly unlikely to happen. If
you believe your jet is a gift from God for your
faithfulness, you're not going to apologize for
it. You're going to see it as a trophy. In the
UK, however, the sources note they've been a
bit stricter. Yes, there was a major case with
a London -based church called Kingsway International
Christian Center and its pastor, Matthew Ashimoluo.
The UK's Charity Commission investigated and
found serious financial misconduct, including
the pastor using church funds for a luxury car
and a timeshare in Florida. It involved millions
in losses, some of it tied to a Ponzi scheme
run by a church trustee. A literal Ponzi scheme.
Yes. So the regulators there have shown more
teeth. But in the U .S., the most effective critique
has largely been left to satirists. You mean
John Oliver? The segment he did on Last Week
Tonight is legendary. He legally established
his own church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption.
Right, to prove how absurdly easy it is to set
up a tax -exempt church and solicit money with
very little oversight. He exposed the predatory
nature of the seed faith requests and the incredibly
loose tax laws perfectly. He asked people to
send him their seed. which was just single dollar
bills, and he received thousands of dollars and
other strange items. He showed the absurdity
of it by highlighting the very real harm it causes.
But satire is one thing. What about the theological
pushback? The critics from within Christianity
must be pretty fierce. That's a really important
point. This is not just atheists or secular media
attacking these preachers. Mainstream evangelicalism,
for the most part, absolutely detests this theology.
They see it as a dangerous distortion of the
Christian gospel. Who are the big voices pushing
back? Influential leaders like Rick Warren, who
wrote The Purpose Driven Life, and the theologian
John Piper. Piper has a very famous quote where
he says, the prosperity gospel will not make
anybody praise Jesus. It will make people praise
prosperity. The argument being that money, not
God, becomes the real object of worship. You're
just using God as a means to get stuff. Exactly.
And they have a very strong biblical rebuttal.
They point to the life of Jesus himself. Jesus
was poor. He said, foxes have holes and birds
have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to
lay his head. And the Apostle Paul. He's a central
figure in the New Testament. Paul is the ultimate
counter -argument. If anyone had enough faith,
it was Paul. And what was his life like? He describes
being shipwrecked, beaten with rods, stoned,
imprisoned, constantly in danger. If the contract
actually worked, if faith automatically guarantees
health, wealth, and safety. then Paul was doing
it completely wrong. So his life of suffering
directly contradicts the always healthy, always
wealthy mandate. It shatters it. And they also
point to verses like Jesus is teaching about
the eye of the needle, that it's easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The
prosperity gospel essentially spends all its
time trying to widen the needle. Even the Assemblies
of God, which is the world's largest Pentecostal
denomination, they issued a formal paper on this,
didn't they? They did, way back in 1980. They
saw this positive confession theology growing
in their ranks, and they issued a major critique.
They argue that prayer should be a humble request
to a sovereign God, not a demand. And they strongly
affirm that suffering is a normal and sometimes
necessary part of the Christian life, not always
a sign of personal sin or lack of faith. That
brings up the big ethical concern, the blaming
the victim aspect of it all. To me, this is the
cruelest part of the theology and the part that
causes the most profound psychological and spiritual
damage. If the system is a law, If faith always
equals wealth and health, then what does it mean
if you are poor or if your child gets cancer?
It means it's your fault. It means it must be
your fault. It implies you lack faith or you
have some hidden sin in your life. Or you accidentally
made a negative confession by telling your friend
you felt sick. I've read heartbreaking accounts
of people dying of a terminal illness and their
well -meaning church friends are standing over
their bed telling them, stop saying you're sick.
You need to claim your healing. So instead of
receiving comfort in their suffering, they get
guilt and condemnation. It strips away comfort
from those who are suffering and replaces it
with a terrible burden of blame. It's a heavy
burden to carry. Now, before we wrap this up,
we have to look at how this theology intersects
with politics and culture today, because this
isn't just happening inside the four walls of
a church. Not at all. The most obvious connection
in recent American politics was during the Trump
presidency. Paula White, who served as Donald
Trump's spiritual advisor, is a prominent prosperity
preacher. She gave the invocation at his inauguration.
She did. And when you look at it, there's a natural
synergy between prosperity theology and a certain
kind of laissez -faire deregulated capitalism.
How so? They both seem to love deregulation and
the idea that personal wealth is a sign of virtue.
It creates a powerful moral justification for
extreme wealth inequality. If the rich are rich
because God has blessed them, Because they have
the right faith or the right mindset, then any
attempt to tax them or regulate their businesses
can be framed as fighting against God's will.
It's an attack on God's chosen vessels of blessing.
That is a very powerful political narrative.
It makes capitalism a divine institution. And
interestingly, the outline also notes some parallels
with Mormonism. Oh, right. The prosperity cycle.
What's that? The LDS Church has a concept in
its teachings, often derived from the Book of
Mormon, called the prosperity cycle, which suggests
that righteousness and obedience to God's laws
lead to physical prosperity, which can then sometimes
lead to pride and a downfall. And what about
the man -to -God progression? The LDS theological
idea that humans can progress to become like
God. to become gods themselves certainly echoes
the little gods doctrine that we talked about
from Kenneth Copeland. Though, to be fair, the
LDS leadership has pushed back on the prosperity
gospel label recently. They have. An apostle,
Dallin H. Oaks, gave a major speech explicitly
preaching against what he called prosperity theology.
But the cultural overlap, this deep -seated American
religious idea that righteousness equals success.
is very, very strong. It's the old Protestant
work ethic on steroids. So we've covered a huge
amount of ground here, from 19th century mind
cults to private jets to the White House. How
do we synthesize all of this? What's the big
takeaway? It's a complex, uniquely American cocktail.
It's American optimism and individualism fused
with metaphysical mind power. all wrapped in
biblical language. And it appeals to that deep,
fundamental human desire for control. I think
that's the absolute key. We live in an uncontrollable,
often scary world. Poverty is terrifying. Illness
is terrifying. This theology hands you a remote
control for the universe. It says if you just
push these buttons in the right order, you can
control the outcome. That is an incredibly seductive
promise. It turns faith from a relationship of
trust into a mechanism, a lever you can pull
to get a result. But the question... and this
is the thought we should probably leave you with,
is about what this does to the nature of God
himself. Go on. If faith is treated as a binding
contract, if I input my belief and my seed money,
and I am guaranteed an output of wealth, Does
that make God a sovereign, mysterious being to
be worshipped and adored? Or does it just make
him a cosmic vending machine to be operated?
A vending machine. You put in the dollar, you
push the button, you get the candy bar. And if
God is just a vending machine, what happens to
the spiritual lives of the millions of people
who pull that lever again and again and get nothing
in return? That is the question. Thank you for
joining us on this deep dive. It's a heavy topic,
but one that really explains so much of the world
we see around us. My pleasure. It was fascinating.
We'll see you next time. Stay curious.