Category: Consumer Christianity

Don’t share your cookies!

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I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit.  – Tony Campolo

Sometimes, when I’m really bored, I’ll click on the Christian Post for a helping of warmed-over evangelical propaganda. They specialize in gripe features, when they’re not fretting about losing white Christian control over everything.

This CP article over the Christmas holidays really helped explain what the Evangelical Tribe is all about. It involves a church in densely populated urban Seattle that is experiencing a major problem. (It’s a Greek Orthodox church, but the CP commenters piling on here were assumedly evangelicals). The particular area is known as one of Seattle’s most popular nightlife and entertainment districts, and home to a historic gay village. It’s going through the throes of gentrification, where the birthplace of grunge is scaling up to a more expensive grunge. Trip experts rave about loads to do, but warn not to stray from the main drag.

Seattle has become a magnet for the homeless. They are hanging out on street corners and camped out in public parks. Tourists complain the area is overrun with pan-handling drug addicts. The local church in question has the same issue, and parishioners are afraid to attend. They blame the police for doing nothing. “We need help”, the church pleads.

The question is, would WE invite these dead-enders and abused losers to worship with us? No. These folks just wouldn’t fit in with our kind, especially at the pleasant après-worship featuring coffee and sweets. Instead, we’d be dialing 911 and sending them to jail. Like a Baptist church in California, where a homeless man who entered the church looking for assistance was arrested. He had stolen some $2 worth of cookies!  Who is the “we” who really needs help?

Last month, most of us in America endured one of the most frigid, pipe-busting Decembers on record. While the polar vortex winds blew, how many of us driving to our comfy Christmas Eve services, gave any thought to detour past a Wal-Mart or other big box store?. After dark, on any given night, any number of dingy cars and vans are parked in the dark corners of the lot. People live in them. We call them “homeless” people, but they are not. They are un-homed, discarded, hungry and unloved. Go ahead and check for yourself.

Like the church in question, many Christians imagine the world’s problems might be solved if needy people outside our churchly comfort zone would just magically disappear. Commenters to the article tried to paint the church as victim:

  • “Police are so kind to homeless people. Seize their property and then roust them 9 times out of 10.”
  • “If you don’t like rampant crime and homelessness, then don’t vote Democrat.” 
  • “These are not poor……….These are addicted to drugs”
  • “Want to get rid of them?  Go out and start preaching to them all day every day.”
  • “Put these people in prison, and, whilst they are in prison, get them dried out, teach them life skills, and, with any luck, make them productive citizens.”

Can you hear what they’re really saying? Funny, how few of these armchair “experts” saw this as a spiritual problem the American church has disowned. “Are there no prisons?” “Are there no workhouses?” Each year, a Texas church boasting 49,000 members puts on a Christmas extravaganza bigger and better than Broadway. A $60 ticket to see the 1,000 member performance buys angels flying across the ceiling, a choir and live orchestra, a cast of on-stage animals, along with a first act featuring Santa. Duas tantum res anxius optat: Panem et circences. And we don’t have resources to help those in need??? Or is it because we don’t give a shit? When Christians turn our backs to the visibly invisible in our neighborhood, it should shame us to be the truly homeless ones, having souls with “no room at the inn”.

“The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared? – Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Raise a Toast to Thanksgiving

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Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. – 1 Thessalonians 5

We lived in the village of Ellicottville, New York for a number of years,  tucked away in a small corner upstate which is famous for snow accumulations. This week, a ginormous blizzard “of long duration” is destined to hit, leaving some 4 feet of fresh snow.  We’re used to that beginning around Thanksgiving, being snuggled away with a cozy wood fire blazing, watching out the windows as big flakes poured forth from the sky. It was the best time for that holiday, or at least the best time to be home for it. Sadly, some years, we celebrated by ourselves – the roads were impassable for traveling family. But thankful for their presence whenever they could make the snowy trek.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for the year. It expresses my gratefulness to God for all his many good gifts. Even in the years snow blocked us from the rest of civilization, we gave thanks “in all circumstances”.  Thanksgiving is a bittersweet time for me. I love the family-oriented togetherness that culminates at a well-appointed common table. A time of renewal; a time we express love and receive it. But it’s distressing to see the creeping commercialization of Christmas overtake it. Even as the turkey dishes are being cleared, the god of Mammon is seducing us back into the malls, as if Thanksgiving were some annoying interruption to the all-important “ca-ching”. And Americans are more than eager to resume their acquiring, having paused a whole day out of the year to be thankful.

For me, every single day is one for which I feel grateful – and indebted – to a loving God full of grace. For my loving, caring family. For physical well-being. For the protection of a warm house, and food on the table. Its also a day I give back to those not as fortunate in those regards. Like our former housekeeper, Maria. We have committed to “pay forward” many of our blessings onto her struggling family.

For me, commercialization has hollowed-out much of the true joy of Christmas and turned it into a frenzied credit card free-for-all. I look forward to the season of Advent and the Nativity with mixed emotions, seeing so much having been captured by secular culture. There’s not much buying and selling involved in Thanksgiving – a turkey dinner, some seasonal decorations, maybe a vase of flowers. It’s not sexy for marketers. Stores are already fully stocked with Christmas wares. Materialists don’t know how to molest Thanksgiving. They keep pecking away at it, reminding us in football commercials that Black Friday is really the holiday you should pay attention to.

But there is one special day I can raise a toast to the Giver of the feast with my wonderful family to say “I am truly grateful to God for the blessings he’s bestowed”. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Santa Ain’t Coming.

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Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense? (Proverbs 17:16)

Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.  (Isaiah 30:10)

I am a rather plump older man with a large, flowing beard that is pure white. In fact, I get many requests to put on my red suit and portray Santa during holiday season. Which I accept, but only for free at nursing homes and for Special Ed kids. Invariably, starting this time of year, random kids gin up the courage to ask this stranger if I am Santa. Of course I play along, avoiding any promises about the presents they ask me for. For a kid, asking Santa is like offering a prayer. Because Santa is omnipresent like God – everyone knows he’s there, but no one’s ever actually seen him.

Large swaths of evangelism key in on that innate trust in other-worldly blessing.  Prosperity gospel pyramid scammers like Kenneth Copeland tell their children of God to ask for affluence (like he has), and God will give it to them. (But only if you first give bountifully to Copeland ). But even after delivering truckloads of Seed-Money, God doesn’t come through with a Learjet or hand them the keys to a spreading mansion. And Santa ain’t coming.

One Christmas, I was desperate for a BB gun. (Of course, I didn’t get one). But I still believed in Santa. It wasn’t his fault; maybe I didn’t believe hard enough. After trying my best to be a good boy, next year I knew he would come through for me. Funny, how so many adults still place their hopes in a God that looks more like Santa. Maybe, with enough faith – and send enough checks – they’ll soon hit their heavenly lucky numbers. But Santa ain’t coming.

Fabulist Word-Faith preachers promise big miracles for desperate believers. When the Heavenly Amazon doesn’t deliver, posing as God’s earthly surrogates, they plead that no person can know the mind of a god whose intentions and decisions emanate from a metaphysical realm. Their trade is in transcendence. After all, these are businesses that deal exclusively in the divine, not the natural world. Santa doesn’t sell toys; he’s selling dreams. And just like with Santa, you can’t sue God when you don’t get stuff from him. If parishioners miss out on God’s financial largesse, it’s their own fault because of their lack of faith. Any questioning is viewed as a spiritual attack of the Devil. And Santa ain’t coming.

Peter Popov vowed, “I can see God leading people into new homes, new automobiles!” Never mind that Popoff is a debunked faith healer, even today he has a popular nation-wide “ministry”. He brings a “feel good” message that resonates with thousands seeking the Christian self-improvement and emotional therapy he sells – regardless whether he was an enormous fraud. He nevertheless reflects who people want to hear, offering the good life.  But Santa definitely ain’t coming here.

Convicted felon, Jim Bakker, likewise has successfully resurrected his God-business.  What got him into prison was a Ponzi-scheme selling condominium time-shares at his Heritage USA property that bilked hundreds of his – mostly elderly – followers out of their life savings.  Today, it is an ugly, abandoned ruin that resembles eastern Ukraine. Santa never came.

Here’s Bakker’s problem: when these preachers move from commercialized transcendence to dealing in “here-on-earth” goods. You know, like ones involving legally enforceable contracts. Like the “Holy Ground Tiny Houses” manufacturer featured on social media, who promised to build 250 homes tiny homes, never delivered, and then declared bankruptcy.  “He came across as a godly person”, one empty-handed buyer remarked. “It was a Christian organization,” another said. “That’s the only reason I went with it.” NBC reports that, among other things, he “spent five years in prison for bilking more than $470,000 from investors”. Bernard Ebbers, former chairman of bankrupt WorldCom was sentenced to 25-year for cooking the books in a securities fraud which drained billions of dollars from retirement accounts. But Ebbers had the balls to tell his Baptist congregation, “more than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not be jeopardized.”[i]  They’re full of apologies, but Santa ain’t coming here, either.

Like with my BB gun, people are often disappointed when what they wished for doesn’t materialize. Even when a big name preacher-man – or a smooth talking evangelical layman – promises for sure it’s God’s will. The moral here is not necessarily to avoid evangelical marketiers (although probably a wise decision). It’s about not being a “mark” yourself. Especially from trusting others on instinct just because they are Christians. Otherwise, you’ll be singing “I’m gettin’ nuttin for Christmas”.

[i] Jeter, Lynne W. Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at WorldCom. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2004,  p. 188.

Too Big To Fail

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“I think everyone should be upset about this and, again, Joe Biden is off the rails,” spouted Christian spite-witch Marjorie Taylor Greene. Biden should be impeached after the decision to forgive student loans, she huffed. Her outrage reflects the attitude of many evangelicals: “It seems outrageous to me that any President has the power or authority to cancel legal contracts with the stroke of a pen,” a representative commenter replied to a Christian Post article.

In contrast, evangelicals didn’t complain about the CARES Act PPP, the SBA-guaranteed small business loan program.. In fact, some 50% of churches with more than 200 members applied for a “loan”, with “evangelical leaders tied to President Donald Trump and megachurches tied to scandals pulling in some of the largest payouts”. COVID-19 was a financial bonanza for evangelicals. And they all knew it, replete with secret phone calls from the White House, being “walked through how to obtain emergency funding from the government. Participants in the calls prayed together and thanked officials for ‘blessing’ them with the opportunity to receive millions in taxpayer dollars, even without being tax-exempt or meeting requirements necessary for non-religious organizations.”

Joyce Meyer Ministries, was approved for a $5 million to $10 million loan; Robert Jeffress’ First Baptist Dallas, a loan between $2 million and $5 million; Willow Creek church, between $5 million and $10 million. Despite the intent of PPP to save jobs, the church decided instead to keep the money and cut 92 staff positions. James Dobson’s Family Institute was forgiven $668,549. Mike Bickel of IHOP got $2.5 million. The Crouch dynasty Trinity Broadcasting helped itself to $3.3 million. The American Family Association, a designated hate group, managed to pull $2 million. Steve Furtick wangled $3.6 million, even though his church ended 2019 with a cash surplus of $26 million. Jimmy Swaggart got $2.6 million. Even convicted felon Jim Bakker got into the act, receiving some $400K. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s all exposed – some 400 evangelical ministries and churches – and in the open on the Trinity Foundation website. What happens afterwards – what they do with the money – is locked behind IRS rules protecting churches from transparency in some very opaque finances.

Funny how all these good Christian folks, greedily sucking at the government tit, had no second thought about helping themselves to hard-earned public taxpayer money. And many of them ran some very impressive balance sheets. Along with stashed personal wealth galore. Like the late multi-millionaire and anti-vaccine televangelist Marcus Lamb’s Daystar Network, which took $3.9-million, and turned it around to buy him a multimillion corporate jet. It took an outcry generated by an investigative journalist for Lamb to cough the PPP funds back up. Not like they suffered to meet payroll like struggling mom-and-pop small businesses. Or, the black-owned businesses, which received a paltry 1.9% of loans.  The design was politically maneuvered as a set-up to reward loyal Trump soldiers for their godly obesisance.

And so we return to Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose own business had loans worth $183,504 forgiven. “At the stroke of the pen”, her government indebtedness was expunged. No hypocrisy there, nosiree bob. And these are shofar-blowing zealots for the Lord who adore the Old Testament, reveling in God’s command to murder all the gays.  Yet none of these ram’s horn blowing capitalists ever mention the Israelite Year of Jubilee, which came every 50th year, being a year full of releasing people from their debts, releasing all slaves, and returning property to who owned it (Leviticus 25:1-13).

The hypocrisy is palpable. It should outrage any American taxpayer. Especially a Christian, who disagrees with financially supporting a church or ministry “too big to fail” he/she otherwise shuns as heretical or sham. Meanwhile, thousands of former college students are struggling through an uneasy job market, inflation, and tuition loan repayments. One only needs point to the bait-and-switch Trump University, where “the billionaire had made enough money for himself. Now, he would put his famous brain to work for the little guy“. God cares for the little guy. For glutinous Trump and Taylor Greene, the little guy just gets in the way of the trough. Jesus instead says the little guy is too small to fail my love.

Let’s blow a shofar for student loan forgiveness! 

The WOW factor…

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Hey Mom and Dad!

Tired of buying gifts that your kid just tosses aside as boring? Here’s a fun sensation that’s gonna grab your son’s attention like a bang!  Introducing the all-new Junior AR-15 assault rifle.

Don’t let this fool you – it might be kid-sized, but like its bigger brother, it packs one helluva whollop!  It shoots real bullets – just like Mommy and Daddy’s guns!  Ideal for graduations, birthdays, first communions – or those occasions when he seems a bit down and just needs a mommy hug and something to cheer him up.

Come and get this super-soaker guaranteed to cool his summer down.. This is one stress-reliever that keeps the WOW factor with the kids. Buy now and we’ll include “Why Everyone Needs an AR-15: A Guide for Kids” for free. This helpful AR-15 guide walks you through how awesome the Second Amendment is.

Take it from Sarah Palin: “an AR-15 makes a great gift – what more says ‘I love you’”?

Evangelical Sin, Not So Private and Personal.

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You drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes. You take away my blessing from their children forever. – Micah 2:9

“The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.

Dave Ramsey is a so-called Christian financial planner, who mixes in a few Bible verses with his garden variety advice. Thousands have paid to attend his seminars, where he presides like a fundamentalist preacher, folksy delivery and self-assured scolding included. It’s made him a multi-millionaire many times over. His empire includes Ramsey Solutions, his signature for-profit company – featured as a“2020 Best Workplaces” – plus various investment spin-offs and 501(c) (3) non-profits. 

What is less well-known is that Ramsey Solutions also functions as church. In order to be hired, applicants undergo an extensive process – including a spousal interview. The employees attend a mandatory chapel/pep talk each week. Their work day is scrutinized and their private lives snooped upon to see if they are truly living righteously 24/7. Some allege it leads to a dictatorial culture of suspicion and gossip. Discovered secret sinners get shown the door. Dave can run his company any way he wants, as he often reminds the entire world. I don’t care about his spiritual rule over employees; his business culture is not the point of this post.

Trending lately have been comments he made on his radio show, that if his tenants are displaced because he raised the rent to meet market price, it does not make him a bad Christian. “I did not displace the person out of that house if they can no longer afford it. The marketplace did. The economy did… I didn’t cause any of that,” he challenged.

Who caused that, the renter? No, the renter is a victim. The landlord is a victim. We’re all victims. Ramsey points the accusing finger at a marketplace that demands it. This admission is a significant departure from evangelical insistence on individual sin as the cause of all evil.

For the cold-heartedness of his advice, Ramsey got a mild spanking from Christian Post. Another critic tweeted, “He benefits from the unjust weights and measures that cause housing prices and rent go up faster than wages. He wouldn’t change that if he could, because he values his wealth over his soul.”

Wealth has an amazing power to deceive us. In his Powers Trilogy, theologian Walter Wink emphasized that both individually and collectively, we are vulnerable and exploitable by structural evils – the whole Kosmos that lies in the power of the Evil One. The domination systems, to which we give imperceiving obeisance, make up our culture and society. Individualistic evangelical theology that only recognizes sin only in terms of personal behaviour is inadequate to explain how our souls are manipulated by the faceless, supernatural power structures (Ephesians 6:12) that surround us.

Thus, as a godly landlord, I can’t be personally blamed for a universally accepted economic system which compels me to pursue my own interests, even if it puts people out on the street. In fact, no single individual is guilty. We are all guilty of individual responsibility for corporate sin. As Jürgen Moltmann observed, “anyone who exists in these structures becomes sin’s accomplice, even if he wants only what is good.”[i] The domination system of mammon is participatory; no one is excluded. It entraps even “good” people into valuing money more than people.  Particularly those having the power to impact the lives of others because of their authority or position.  Ramsey’s comment reflects our complicity in the mammon system such that we cannot recognize our idolatry for what it is. Jesus calls us to a domination-free blessed community where, contrary to Cain’s impertinent reply, we together are our brother’s keeper.

[i] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, pp. 139-40.

How To Become A Mega-Rich Evangelical

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If you love being an evangelical so much, it makes perfect sense to make money off it. Multi-millionaire church leaders might seem like an oxymoron. But the leaders of the top 50 megachurches in America reads like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Many have done it using various methods, but if you want your faith to make you stonking rich, just follow this make-bank business model developed by the top of the evangelical stardom heap:

  1. Become a minister Pastorpreneur. Never mind seminary education and ordination, that’s old school. All you need is to have “vision” and trailblazing aspiration. 
  2. Begin a church. It doesn’t have to start as “mega” – every church has the potential to be church-growthed into a prosperous economic enterprise.  Make sure you form the 501(c)(3) and by-laws to remove transparency and make yourself bulletproof. Appoint your family into all the top positions. Make sure every employee signs an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement.
  3. Make outsiders think they possess a slice of authority, but never sacrifice control. And never, ever disclose how much church finances benefit you personally. Instead, humbly state it “would be the most arrogant thing I could do.”[i]
  4. Zero in on a comfy, white exurban area with down-market churches you can harvest. Cater to their lifestyle, offering greater spectacle and more buoyant life-affirmation. With a little talent, a dynamic praise band, and heavy advertising, soon you’ll be attracting people bored with their own churches to come and own a part of “what God is doing”.
  5. Tout yourself as the community’s church. Come up with high visibility events that get on local news. Become friendly with a few wealthy locals that will share your vision of moving up into that abandoned mega-mall across town. But never, ever ruin your pristine carpet by taking in flood victims!
  6. If the Bible doesn’t fit into your revealing of the deep mysteries of Scripture, make stuff up. Just speak in the love language of God. Nobody reads the Bible anymore anyway.
  7. A rock star preacher does more than pastor a church. Podcasts, Facebook followings, books, blogs, uploaded sermons, public appearances, speaking engagements and conference: these all make Jesus – and particularly you – famous. The more prominent you are, the more you become a religious wholesaler on the path to riches. The impetus is to diversify the client base into a religious conglomerate.
  8. You have a flock of sheep people that can work for you!  Checks in the offering plate can bankroll your writing side-business. Use staff time and church resources to do the leg work behind your books, the royalties of which wind up in your pocket. There are some loosely-worded financial accountability standards, but most churches don’t mind sermons and study materials developed on church time and with church resources (double-dipping). The bigger the megapastor’s footprint, the greater that church’s stature and influence. No ambitious church can argue with heightened public image and political clout.  Having a pastor who is a “go-to” media celebrity only enhances the cult status of the church and its brand recognition.
  9. Retain the enormously profitable proprietary rights over your books, videos, etc. Set up your own parachurch organization (which by the way pads the payroll with family members) to manage all your money under the same tax-free roof. Your parachurch can be transformed into an IRS-defined “church”, with greater opacity of finances to make it hard to follow the money.
  10. Form a separate for-profit business to receive book royalties, income from video productions, freelance speaking gigs to hype your products, etc. And while these assets are produced during your work for the church, and church resources are used to develop them, the copyrights are owned by you, the mega-pastor, through your personal side business.
  11. Disguise your books to look like works of love, not lucre. Donate copies of your books to the church for a personal tax deduction. Remember that your congregants are essentially captive customers. Sell thousands of them to the church bookstore below retail cost. No need to mark them up; you will already receive royalties up to 20 percent of wholesale. The objective is for the church to spend tithe money on numerous copies of your books to drive it onto a bestseller’s list. Everything the church does must be designed around your product line.
  12. For tax purposes, pour your assets into a CRUT (Charitable Remainder Unitrust) and name yourself as trustee. This complex tax shelter allows you, the donor, to pay yourself up to 90 percent of the assets over your lifetime, with 10 percent committed to a charity. (In the time-honored tradition of Ananias and Sapphira, it’s telling just the teensiest lie when a celebrity preacher boasts about donating his book proceeds to his church. He enjoys a hefty nest egg, while the church has to wait for whatever leftovers the trust has not exhausted by the time of his death).
  13. Expand your product placement without even having to leave the building through McChurches. Because the dream-weaver can only be physically present at one venue at a time, your image can now be teleported to preach in multiple campuses via video simulcast uplink. Franchising strings together a conglomerate of satellite operations to expand the revenue base. You do the speaking and take the offering plate, while a local staffer facilitates the satellite feed locally. You continue to profit as the main attraction, without having to pastor anybody.
  14. Remember that you are not only a person, you are a trademark. And that means protecting your property from potential rivals. The congregants are your job security, and they will take their business wherever mega-grifters offer greater spectacle. You’ll need to be trendier and produce more and better theatricality because your church’s back door is as open as it’s front.
  15. Follow these rules, and soon you’ll be a celebrity-leader collecting holy piles of other peoples’ money.

[i] Morgan Fogerty, “The Get with Morgan Fogarty: Pastor Steven Furtick”, WCCB-TV, Inc., November 10, 2015. http://www.wccbcharlotte.com/news/local/The-Get-with-Morgan-Fogarty-Pastor-Steven-Furtick–345443532.html  (accessed November 20, 2015).