Says Anthea Butler, an expert in Pentecostalism at the University of Rochester in New York: "The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.' " Adds J. Lee Grady, editor of the magazine Charisma: "It definitely goes on, that a preacher might say, 'If you give this offering, God will give you a house.' And if they did get the house, people did think that it was an answer to prayer, when in fact it was really bad banking policy." If so, the situation offers a look at how a native-born faith built partially on American economic optimism entered into a toxic symbiosis with a pathological market.
My wife, who knows a thing or two about theology, has been railing against the prosperity gospel for some years now, but I haven't taken more than a passing interest in it. The idea that God "rewarded" faith with material things seemed ludicrous, but generally harmless. After all, if someone prayed for a promotion and got it, and believed in a causal relationship, did that really harm anyone? In short, an infantile, wrong, and sad theology, but not harmful. The current sub-prime mess, however, leads me to ponder something else: given that the prosperity gospel became popular during an economic bubble where normal senses of prudence and sobriety absconded, will we now see its decline during tough times? Or does this movement have enough momentum to persist until the good times return? Will the p.g. advocates be forced to exhort their wavering followers who don't see immediate gratification to press on with the mere promise of hitting paydirt? But then, can a movement dependant on instant results survive this cognitive dissonance? Just tryin' to make some sense...
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