"Christian Debt Management"

Isn't everything?

Did Christianity Cause the Crash?

America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong.

(article continues at link)

Had a feeling the revive was going to be about that - good article.

It is a good article. If anything the prosperity movement strikes me as an Evangelical reboot of The Secret.

Couple of quotes for the thread

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. Both spread in two particular kinds of communities—the exurban middle class and the urban poor. Many newer prosperity churches popped up around fringe suburban developments built in the 1990s and 2000s, says Walton. These are precisely the kinds of neighborhoods that have been decimated by foreclosures, according to Eric Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending.

Zooming out a bit, Kate Bowler found that most new prosperity-gospel churches were built along the Sun Belt, particularly in California, Florida, and Arizona—all areas that were hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Bowler, who, like Walton, was researching a book, spent a lot of time attending the “financial empowerment” seminars that are common at prosperity churches. Advisers would pay lip service to “sound financial practices,” she recalls, but overall they would send the opposite message: posters advertising the seminars featured big houses in the background, and the parking spots closest to the church were reserved for luxury cars.

And really what sums it all up

It is not all that surprising that the prosperity gospel persists despite its obvious failure to pay off. Much of popular religion these days is characterized by a vast gap between aspirations and reality. Few of Sarah Palin’s religious compatriots were shocked by her messy family life, because they’ve grown used to the paradoxes; some of the most socially conservative evangelical churches also have extremely high rates of teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce. As Garay likes to say, “What you have is nothing compared to what you will have.” The unpleasant reality—an inadequate paycheck, a pregnant daughter, a recession—is invisible. It’s your ability to see beyond such things, your willing blindness to even the most hopeless-seeming circumstances, that makes you a certain kind of modern Christian, and a 21st-century American.

There is the kind of hope that President Obama talks about, and that Clinton did before him—steady, uplifting, assured. And there is Garay’s kind of hope, which perhaps for many people better reflects the reality of their lives. Garay’s is a faith that, for all its seeming confidence, hints at desperation, at circumstances gone so far wrong that they can only be made right by a sudden, unexpected jackpot.

Once, I asked Garay how you would know for certain if God had told you to buy a house, and he answered like a roulette dealer. “Ten Christians will say that God told them to buy a house. In nine of the cases, it will go bad. The 10th one is the real Christian.” And the other nine? “For them, there’s always another house.”

And from the Atlantic as well: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/mcardle-ramsey-debt

all the fucked-up theological materialism of Calvinism, except without the predetermination or the work ethic. sounds fun.

all the fucked-up theological materialism of Calvinism, except without the predetermination or the work ethic

this is like an all-time otm post my friend

strip away the evangelical twattery and I really think Ramsey is pretty otm. I seem to happen upon his show every time I drive through Mississippi. outside of the tithing mandates, I would imagine most folks could probably benefit from following his advice.

yeah he's all over the small local stations around here

yeah i don't really know much about him. in fairness, during the small stretches i've listened to him he does seem to keep the bible thumping at bay. now his seminars might be a totally different story.

there's something embarrassing about the wholesale mixture of finances and christianity -- it's as if these folks are pretending the gospel of matthew never existed.

"fuck caesar, I'm gonna render my life savings unto GOD. then i can be like those lilies of the field and have nicer clothes than king solomon. blessed are the what now?"

I have relatives who are v. much into this, and they will give you all sorts of backwards revisionist Bible lessons about money e.g. "Did you know the reason they bid on Jesus' robe after his death was because it was so nice and aristocratic?" or "Being a carpenter back then was the equivalent of being a day trader today. It was the job to have."

"Did you know the reason they bid on Jesus' robe after his death was because it was so nice and aristocratic?"

omg tell me you made this part up

holy fuck.

seriously.

at my church they tend to like reminding us about the parts that say "give all your wealth to the poor. no, seriously, that's what jesus said." i think the best anyone can do is compromise, because you do need to save for emergencies/retirement/whatever, but i know very few people who really think they are as generous as they could be. i'm certainly not. the whole "god wants you to be wealthy and secure!" school of thought seems really theologically fucked up to me!

No.

I was originally going to post "Did you know that Jesus overturned the tables of the money-changers because they were in his spot?" as a joke, but then I remembered things my uncle actually says.

iirc the soldiers cast lots for jesus' garment because it had no seam and could not be split up among them -- making the leap that its seamlessness was somehow aristocratic kinda overlooks the practical problem of dividing a seamless garment

at my church they tend to like reminding us about the parts that say "give all your wealth to the poor. no, seriously, that's what jesus said." i think the best anyone can do is compromise, because you do need to save for emergencies/retirement/whatever

But that's not what Jesus said. The Great Commission specifically sent the disciples out with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the trust that God would provide.

I mean, it's fine if people want to actually practice their individual faith in whatever different way, but to pretend that Jesus was anything but absolutely clear on the need to, essentially, impoverish oneself to follow him is just that: pretending. He didn't say, "Go ye into the world and take a few bucks for cab fair, and oh geez, what if you get in an accident, here's my cellphone."

iirc the soldiers cast lots for jesus' garment because it had no seam and could not be split up among them -- making the leap that its seamlessness was somehow aristocratic kinda overlooks the practical problem of dividing a seamless garment

yeah, and also - I mean, there's depths aplenty in John 19:23-24 but the point is 100% not "Jesus was a natty dresser." I think the main thing, besides the fulfillment of prophecy, is the exaggerated humiliation - the people who stripped & killed you are also gonna keep your clothes, and the nicest thing you have - a seamless undergarment (not robe) - they'll just throw dice for since they can't divide it up

last anecdote about my terrible uncle:

When my grandmother passed away she gave all of her money (a considerable amount) to one of my aunts, and my uncle, bless him, said that my grandmother cursed herself and died because she had recently changed her will into something so unfair.

The ironic punchline is that my uncle was going around at the time reminding everyone that, in Bible times, the first born son inherited everything when the parents died, so to keep the family estate going strong. Had the shoe been on the other foot there wouldn't have been a problem, but because it wasn't God killed his mom justly. Yeah.

One of the most wicked things about this doctrine is that it tells people that if they were having enough faith they'd be living in their Brentwood palace right now, and not wherever they currently are; and so when the pot of gold is never found at the end of the rainbow it's just made people bitter or frustrated, thinking that either God has been cruel in not cutting them the check or that they're not doing enough compared to the rich.

It's like inverting every Biblical principal and making it wrong. "and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it...and the next day he flipped that pearl and bought with the silver a Mercedes. Now everyone in the land of Israel would know of his great wealth and shrewd business sense. And God saw this and was pleased."

sure: all success is esteemed as the blessings from God upon the faithful, but all failure is due to one's own lack of faith.

while the revision towards a capitalist gospel is really troubling, it's the positive thinking / wish fulfillment inheritance from the New Age movement that i find additionally discordant. it IS kind of a re-packaged version of "the secret" or "creative visualization" or any number of similarly fuzzy, non-Christian ideas.

the people who stripped & killed you are also gonna keep your clothes, and the nicest thing you have - a seamless undergarment (not robe) - they'll just throw dice for since they can't divide it up

Yeah, I never really got this - supposing you could divide it up, how much use is half a vest? Or a third etc.

you sell it on ebay

INRI * COLLECTIBLE JESUS OF NAZARETH UNDERGARMENT * SEAMLESS RARE LQQK

But that's not what Jesus said. The Great Commission specifically sent the disciples out with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the trust that God would provide.

I mean, it's fine if people want to actually practice their individual faith in whatever different way, but to pretend that Jesus was anything but absolutely clear on the need to, essentially, impoverish oneself to follow him is just that: pretending. He didn't say, "Go ye into the world and take a few bucks for cab fair, and oh geez, what if you get in an accident, here's my cellphone."

But that was exactly my point! The part in quotes was paraphrasing Jesus/pastors quoting Jesus, and the part about compromise was my opinion (which I thought was obvious because I wrote "I think"). And yeah, I know that means I'm not following the gospel when I put away money for future unanticipated emergencies, but this is a pretty consistent budgeting conflict I have!

i think the willingness to impoverish oneself is more to the point than actually *being* poor, imo. having nothing is not inherently virtuous, but giving up what little you do have certainly is.

i mean in the context of jesus' teachings and parables, of course. as i have understood them.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/12/25/RichJesus/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29

Yeah, that's completely retarded, but is pretty much in line how their fucked up complete reversion of Scripture is for everything else.

there's a pretty comprehensive refutation of this obscene movement here

Just another demented self serving version of Christianity, add it to the pile...

all the fucked-up theological materialism of Calvinism, except without the predetermination or the work ethic. sounds fun.

― elmo leonard (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, December 22, 2009 10:52 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what does this even mean?

strip away the evangelical twattery and I really think Ramsey is pretty otm. I seem to happen upon his show every time I drive through Mississippi. outside of the tithing mandates, I would imagine most folks could probably benefit from following his advice.

i agree. i think that since he's part of the evangelical community that that makes him much more important -- he can reach through to folks who wouldn't give, say, suze orman or elizabeth warren the time of day (even though they're saying largely the same thing re: credit), so i won't begrudge him his Bible thumping.

yeah, i find most of his program just very sensible and obvious! (i don't follow it really though, i don't have a lot of disposable income on my stipend and i'm not disciplined enough with what i have to give or save at the rates he recommends, although i at least don't have debt and am working on tweaking my budget to give more.)

what does this even mean?

this is helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism

the prosperity gospel believes that financial success correlates with God's favor, kind of like the Puritan belief that God predetermined those that would become Christians, and that you might be able to tell who those people are because they lived righteously and seemed to have God's favor (e.g. money).

But unlike Weber's interpretation of Calvinism, this prosperity gospel doesn't encourage a work ethic that will brings success, but says that God will make you rich if you live right and have enough faith (and having enough faith often times involves tithing more than you can afford to your, their, church).

So they're saying it's Calvinism but without a work ethic or God pre-determining who will be saved. "God wants to make you rich and he places a very high value on wealth" - even though that idea goes against countless Bible stories, namely Jesus saying:

"...I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I mean, how do you get around that?

the puritans were at least against spending or displaying your wealth because of that, it was how self-discipline and hard work pervaded your life that you were supposed to show off and accumulation of wealth was a...lucky side effect! the prosperity gospel stuff doesn't seem to have any awareness of that conflict, which makes me wonder if at some level i'm just not getting it.

it seems like one of those belief systems that sounds horrible if you're not a part of it but is really quite irresistible if you're invited.

"what if I told you God was going to give a select few a great amount of wealth -- just because."

"eh"

"What if I said you are among the chosen?"

"...ooh, I'm listening."

so I think I've told this story on some other thread but it's relevant here too. I teach philosophy of religion at a big state university, and one of the texts I regularly teach is Augustine's Confessions. So one day we were discussing Book 6, in particular the beggar incident, wherein Augustine realizes his quest for material prosperity is fucked when he sees a drunk beggar having a blast, while he's on the road to worldly success but always working too hard to enjoy it. When I teach this text we can go in lots of directions, but my more self-righteous students can get pretty excited about how to follow Jesus is to live poor like he did. One term, though, I had a student who was very theologically conscious, but from a much different background from my usual students---she was African Methodist but pretty involved in a bunch of other evangelical churches too. She reacted very negatively against the living poor business: she said, c'mon, my people have lived poor for hundreds of years, my family lived poor my whole life---and it wasn't our choice to do so! For the rest of you, she said, giving up your money is a choice, but for me, it's nothing, it's the way I live. And so I want to live differently, I want to live affluently, I want to live as though Jesus blessed me instead of cursing me. And she said a bunch of other interesting things that day too, and the class discussion got really interesting afterward, but I raise it here just to say that the prosperity gospel can sound less nutty if your background is like this student's, and never having lived her life I'm not sure she's wrong.

I like that Atlantic article because garay actually makes the other televangelists quoted sound reasonable and okay

Euler that is an interesting story, certainly if you're just off the boat and over the fence running from poverty this gospel can sound inviting. but I don't think it excuses irresponsible financial advice