Did chrisTianity Cause the Crash?

[Ian David]

Did chrisTianity Cause the Crash?

Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre’s success can be measured by upgrades in real estate. The mostly Latino church, in Charlottesville, Virginia, has moved from the pastor’s basement, where it was founded in 2001, to a rented warehouse across the street from a small mercado five years later, to a middle-class suburban street last year, where the pastor now rents space from a lovely old Baptist church that can’t otherwise fill its pews. Every Sunday, the parishioners drive slowly into the parking lot, never parking on the sidewalk or grass—“because Americanos don’t do that,” one told me—and file quietly into church. Some drive newly leased SUVs, others old work trucks with paint buckets still in the bed. The pastor, Fernando Garay, arrives last and parks in front, his dark-blue Mercedes Benz always freshly washed, the hubcaps polished enough to reflect his wingtips.

It can be hard to get used to how much Garay talks about money in church, one loyal parishioner, Billy Gonzales, told me one recent Sunday on the steps out front. Back in Mexico, Gonzales’s pastor talked only about “Jesus and heaven and being good.” But Garay talks about jobs and houses and making good money, which eventually came to make sense to Gonzales: money is “really important,” and besides, “we love the money in Jesus Christ’s name! Jesus loved money too!” That Sunday, Garay was preaching a variation on his usual theme, about how prosperity and abundance unerringly find true believers. “It doesn’t matter what country you’re from, what degree you have, or what money you have in the bank,” Garay said. “You don’t have to say, ‘God, bless my business. Bless my bank account.’ The blessings will come! The blessings are looking for you! God will take care of you. God will not let you be without a house!”

Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with thick black hair combed back. In his off hours, he looks like a contented tourist, in his printed Hawaiian shirts or bright guayaberas. But he preaches with a ferocity that taps into his youth as a cocaine dealer with a knife in his back pocket. “Fight the attack of the devil on my finances! Fight him! We declare financial blessings! Financial miracles this week, NOW NOW NOW!” he preached that Sunday. “More work! Better work! The best finances!” Gonzales shook and paced as the pastor spoke, eventually leaving his wife and three kids in the family section to join the single men toward the front, many of whom were jumping, raising their Bibles, and weeping. On the altar sat some anointing oils, alongside the keys to the Mercedes Benz.

<snip>

America’s churches always reflect shifts in the broader culture, and Casa del Padre is no exception. The message that Jesus blesses believers with riches first showed up in the postwar years, at a time when Americans began to believe that greater comfort could be accessible to everyone, not just the landed class. But it really took off during the boom years of the 1990s, and has continued to spread ever since. 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 Garay’s church, 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. Even in these hard times, it is discouraged, in such churches, to fall into despair about the things you cannot afford. “Instead of saying ‘I’m poor,’ say ‘I’m rich,’” Garay’s wife, Hazael, told me one day. “The word of God will manifest itself in reality.”

More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/rosin-prosperity-gospel

[Warpy]

1. The preachers did uncommonly well with it

A cousin's child got sucked into one of those places. Brains run in the family, so it took just under six months for the kid to realize the only one getting rich was the preacher raking in the tithes.

Prosperity theology worked really well when people could tithe and make up the difference on plastic. God worked in wondrous ways while the real estate bubble was inflating and he seemed to want to work hardest in the parts of the country where it was inflating the most so it would also inflate the tithes.

Prosperity theology might have encouraged the gullible to increase their debt so they could live the way Jebus wanted them to and it might have allayed their fears over being that fiscally stupid, but I think this article put the cart before the horse. I think the prosperity pimps moved into the areas where this was already happening because they knew the pickings would be better than they were in places like pennypinching New England, which had inflated real estate prices but low debt in other areas.

However, it's a completely different story now. I'd like to see some honest reporting on what's happening to those churches in terms of memberships and what they're still able to fleece from the gullible and desperate.

They're probably not going to admit anything, though. They are certainly never going to open their books while they're untaxed.

[MountainLaurel]

2. That was a great article

And it rang true on a lot of levels -- I wonder what Ehrenreich's new book has to say about the topic

[DeSwiss]

3. Excellant article, thanks for posting it.

I found this one line particularly intriguing:

Among Latinos the prosperity gospel has been spreading rapidly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/pewhispanic.org/files/reports/75.3.pdf">In a recent Pew survey, 73 percent of all religious Latinos in the United States agreed with the statement: “God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith.” For a generation of poor and striving Latino immigrants, the gospel seems to offer a road map to affluence and modern living.

So, what I want to know now is, how much is "enough faith?" Does "enough faith" have anything to do with the concept of tithing? Has one reached the "enough faith" level when the pastor has a second vacation home for prayer and contemplation/reflection. Or is when he's free to spread the Good News via his new Gulf Stream jet?

- Inquiring minds want to know......


K&R

[charlie]

4. This line

should lift eyebrows over heads:

From 2001 to 2007, while he was building his church, Garay was also a loan officer at two different mortgage companies. He was hired explicitly to reach out to the city’s growing Latino community...

[DeSwiss]

5. So Reverend d00d here has got....

...all his irons in the fire working for him. He's got the offerings, the commissions, the fees and the points. ¡Ay, caramba! I wonder if he charges the kids late fees if they're tardy on their Sunday School offerings.

- It's never too early to learn financial responsibility, you know.....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. The "prosperity Gospel" is a great example of free-lance fundamentalists

making up their own religion.

If there's anything that Jesus is consistent on in all four actual Gospels, it's what Liberation Theology calls "a preferential option for the poor." He is TOUGH on the rich.