"francis who?" asked martin luther

[rone]

Time's cover story this week is titled Does God Want You To Be Rich? and talks about megachurches who rake in the dough and, essentially, try to justify it with doctrine.  Pop quiz, Protestants: what is apostolic poverty?  It's somewhat comical to see certain mistakes being repeated centuries later.

This New Prosperity is scary, a way to wrap up bourgeois goals in spiritual garments.  Speaking as an agnostic who has a raving asshole atheist somewhere inside that keeps slipping out for joyrides, reading about this crap is like waving bacon in a dog's face.  It's taking charismatic preachers and sprinkling elements of a cult and a pyramid scheme.  Hmm, it's like Mormonism.  I imagine suggesting to these people that they're just like Mormons would be guaranteed fireworks.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what's "new" about it is "some key modifications" which occurred after the Bakker and Swaggart meltdowns.

The Osteen quotes give me the heebie-jeebies and set off all kinds of bullshit alarms in my head. I don't know what could be done to stop him, though.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

I was far more amused to discover that there's a pastor named Creflo Dollar, than I was disturbed by Osteen's quotes.

I think of the movement as a sort of spiritual Powerball...God Lotto, as it were. I've given up trying to understand or be concerned with other people's theology unless it involves jumping up and down on Oprah's couch or cannibalizing me without my consent.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I guess that the lack of a pope and an antipope means the situation won't ever come to a head.