December 30, 2009
"Did Christianity Cause the Crash?" asks the cover of the December Atlantic. Now there's a question I never thought to ask.
I'm not sure Hanna Rosin, who wrote the corresponding article, ever thought to ask it either. It sounds more like the marketing department to me. But Rosen's exploration of the connection between godliness and success in America should get us all thinking.
Rosin focuses on Casa del Padre, a Latino church in Charlottesville, Va., where there is a seamless connection between piety and prosperity.
The principle is simple: since ultimately God owns everything, the preeminent sign of God's blessing is material success with all the trappings—houses, luxury cars, and jewelry. God gives financial prosperity and good health to any of his children who will step out in faith and wholeheartedly believe.
Rosin writes:
This stitched-together, homegrown theology, known as the prosperity gospel, is not a clearly defined denomination, but a strain of belief that runs through the Pentecostal Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, with varying degrees of intensity. In [Casa del Padre], God is the "Owner of All the Silver and Gold," and with enough faith, any believer can access the inheritance. Money is not the dull stuff of hourly wages and bank-account statements, but a magical substance that comes as a gift from above.
According to a Pew survey cited by Rosin, a whopping 73 percent of Latinos in America agree with the statement, "God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith" making the success of churches like Casa del Padre almost assured.
There is something fundamentally American here. This is, after all, "the land of opportunity" where "any boy or girl regardless of background can grow up to be president." And while the prosperity gospel may present a caricature American exceptionalism, it fits nicely with popular ideas about our country.
Rosin talked with Tony Tian-Ren Lin at the University of Virginia who has studied the prosperity gospel in the Latino community. Lin, she writes, "finds the message at prosperity churches quintessentially American. ‘They are taught they can do absolutely anything, and it's God's will. They become part of the elect, the chosen. They get swept up in the manifest destiny, this idea that God has lifted Americans above everyone else.'"
As Rosin and Lin point out, this is a particularly attractive message for immigrants from developing nations, but it is not limited to immigrants, the poor, or the uneducated. Rosin writes:
The doctrine has become popular with Americans of every background and ethnicity; overall, Pew found that 66 percent of all Pentecostals and 43 percent of "other Christians"—a category comprising roughly half of all respondents—believe that wealth will be granted to the faithful.
According to Rosin, Kate Bowler, a doctoral candidate at Duke University who has been studying the prosperity gospel, classifies 50 of America's 260 largest churches prosperity gospel churches.
By far the largest of these churches is Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. In fact, it is America's largest church, bar none. Rosin quotes Osteen:
"Cast down anything negative, any thought that brings fear, worry, doubt, or unbelief," he urges. "Your attitude should be: ‘I refuse to go backward. I am going forward with God. I am going to be the person he wants me to be. I'm going to fulfill my destiny.'" Telling yourself you are poor, or broke, or stuck in a dead-end job is a form of sin and "invites more negativity into your life," he writes. Instead, you have to "program your mind for success," wake up every morning and tell yourself, "God is guiding and directing my steps."
