Lunatic “prosperity preacher” endorses Trump

[jsroberts]

@metsuken

Anyone who champions the Westminster Catechism, which is the gold standard of conservative theology, would emphatically reject health and wealth and most would probably denounce it was straight up heresy.

Anyone who has read the Bible for themselves should be able to do that:

These are the things you are to teach and insist on. 3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.
[1 Timothy 6]

@anon61221983 I’d say the Protestant work ethic has a lot to do with the idea that you can’t do anything to earn salvation, but living a good and productive life is evidence that it has happened. It seems to stand against laziness rather than poverty, from what I can see, but it’s not difficult to imagine rich people changing the meaning to make money gained a proxy for work done. The health and wealth gospel would seem to be directly opposed to this idea, as it’s all about getting something for nothing. The people promoting it celebrate their wealth as something God has just handed to them because they cracked some code.

I’ve always thought of pre-20th century evangelical preachers (John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon etc.) almost as lawyers who were trying to establish the guilt of people listening - they often used arguments to “convict people of sin” and turn them to the gospel. Later you get more salesman-type preachers who tell you what a wonderful offer salvation is. This crowd seems more of a development from this toward celebrities who ostentatiously parade their wealth, and their angle has moved towards self-help. While it is Christianity-flavoured, I don’t think that’s much more than knowing your market.

Spectacle has always been a big part of it - Wesley scandalised people by breaking the rule of having to preach in a particular parish church (and promoted lay preaching although he was ordained in the Anglican church), and Whitefiled was apparently very dramatic - an actor claimed that he could make audience members weep and tremble merely by saying the word ‘Mesopotamia’, and claimed that, “I would give a hundred guineas if I could only say ‘O!’ like Mr. Whitefield.” Benjamin Franklin was also a fan of his oratory and went to see him preach a few times as well as corresponding with him.

Whitefield’s ‘O!’ face, presumably:

[kupfernigk]

@jsroberts

I’ve always thought of pre-20th century evangelical preachers (John Wesley, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon etc.) almost as lawyers

I live near Frome, in Somerset, which in the Wesley days was a very prosperous wool town. The weavers were notoriously opinionated, and when Wesley visited he was taken aback when the weavers argued right back at him. There is a local verse of the time which includes the lines “Say, brother fanatics, what led you to Frome/where weavers expound as they sit at the loom……here at your own weapons you’re fairly outdone…”
The salesman approach has the advantage for the preacher that it is designed to avoid just this counter argument.
(Eventually when Methodism became respectable a Methodist church was founded in the town, but it still has a Dissenters’ Cemetery and I believe you can still be buried there if you belonged to a non-mainstream church. But this may be an urban myth.)

@metsuken

In Luther’s view, being a Christian shoemaker doesn’t have anything to do with making “Christian” shoes with Bible verses, but it has everything to do with making quality shoes to benefit your neighbor, charging a fair price, and running an ethical business

Which was precisely what the Clark family (Quakers) did at Street until they abandoned their principles in pursuit of more easily earned money and ended up with Clarks a shadow of itself (as recounted to me by Matthew Clark.)

[anon61221983]

@jsroberts

I’d say the Protestant work ethic has a lot to do with the idea that you can’t do anything to earn salvation, but living a good and productive life is evidence that it has happened. It seems to stand against laziness rather than poverty, from what I can see, but it’s not difficult to imagine rich people changing the meaning to make money gained a proxy for work done.

I still think Calvin’s view was probably a bit more influential here, but I’d have to say that indeed people have done this, made their own fortune as evidence of god’s favor and ignored the plight of the poor, because bootstraps-something-something. It’s not really an academic exercise, as I’ve been to more than enough protestant services (of various faiths) so see this in action.

@metsuken

Max Weber saw the rise of capitalism in northern Europe, saw that those nations were protestant (whereas southern Europe was generally Catholic), then linked it to Martin Luther’s teachings on labor.

I guess it’s not a huge surprise that Weber saw Luther as the central figure here, as Weber was also German.

I’d say that this was probably not a single source for the evolution of the modern concept of a protestant work ethic (and how it plays out in modern American society), bur it likely sprang from multiple sources and changed overtime as it developed in the US.

But back to prosperity doctrine, which takes this to it’s nth degree that wealth is next to godliness.

@metsuken

capitalism became such a massive cultural facet that it essentially rewrote the mythos of the Puritans.

Capitalism rewrote all facets of America history to make it a capitalist friendly mythos. So, yeah, spot-on here.

[jsroberts]

@kupfernigk

(Eventually when Methodism became respectable a Methodist church was founded in the town, but it still has a Dissenters’ Cemetery and I believe you can still be buried there if you belonged to a non-mainstream church. But this may be an urban myth.)

There’s an interesting dissenters’ graveyard in London, which has the remains of many famous characters such as John Bunyan, Susannah Wesley and others - my father published a book on it, although I haven’t read it myself:

Burial ground of Bunyan, Defoe and Blake earns protected status

An almost direct ancestor on my mother’s side was the first nonconformist to be offered a fellowship at Oxford; he, a Jewish guy and his brother (my g. g. g. grandfather) came first or very highly in the yearly maths test (tripos), so they changed the rules that had previously stated that you had to be an Anglican and take religious tests in order to be a fellow. He still refused, but he did campaign for women to be able to study alongside men (especially after a woman beat all of the men in the tripos one year!). A lot of nonconformist groups seemed to be better in a number of ways before they became respectable.

[Immutable_Mike]

All the Franciscans I know (including my wife who’s a Tertiary) would also know that any depiction of Francis as a bodybuilder is probably not an accurate one.

[jsroberts]

@anon61221983

I still think Calvin’s view was probably a bit more influential here, but I’d have to say that indeed people have done this, made their own fortune as evidence of god’s favor and ignored the plight of the poor, because bootstraps-something-something.

I always found it tragic to see churches in West Africa or sometimes the Caribbean that had swallowed this idea that material prosperity was a matter of praying harder, giving more money or some other sign. It’s nice to feel that your god is smiling on you when you are comfortable and well-off, but people who are poor, sick, abused or have other problems have the extra kick in the teeth of having to look happy while wondering what is wrong with them or their faith. For all my doubts about its utility as a basis for morality, the Bible has a lot to say about real world and practical solutions to do with social justice and care for suffering people, and there is no shortage of condemnation of self-serving religious leaders or people whose religion does not include care for others (including paying honest wages, welcoming foreigners and many other things that Donald Trump objects to). Prosperity preachers are absolute parasites and I don’t see it as a moral failing that is supported by any theological perspective as much as a cynical attempt to make money from desperate people. FWIW, I did grow up strongly influenced by Puritan thinking and prosperity preachers generally seemed to be considered the lowest of all forms of Christianity.

Other than that, I do agree that Calvin was important, but there are a number of things that I still like about the protestant work ethic. Valuing productive work as a positive end in itself seems like a good principle that is susceptible to a number of dangerous distortions or extremes. Weber links the PWE and Capitalism in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:

• According to the new Protestant religions, an individual was religiously compelled to follow a secular vocation (German: Beruf) with as much zeal as possible. A person living according to this world view was more likely to accumulate money.

• The new religions (in particular, Calvinism and other more austere Protestant sects) effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and identified the purchase of luxuries as a sin. Donations to an individual’s church or congregation were limited due to the rejection by certain Protestant sects of icons. Finally, donation of money to the poor or to charity was generally frowned on as it was seen as furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God.

The manner in which this paradox was resolved, Weber argued, was the investment of this money, which gave an extreme boost to nascent capitalism.

I think the reluctance to give charitably was a big failing that wasn’t necessarily universal; my uneducated assumption is that it was also a reaction against the perceived idleness promoted by Catholic forms of charity and religious service. Wesley (who wasn’t a Calvinist) famously said, “Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can.” He also strongly promoted education and it has been claimed that Methodism was influential in the formation of a significant English middle class that was resistant to revolution (I’m not claiming this myself, but it is an interesting idea that doesn’t seem to be completely dismissed). The switch from a respect for honest work and frugality to seeking after wealth is something that the New England Puritan Cotton Mather commented on: “Religion begat prosperity and the daughter devoured the mother”. Of course Cotton Mather was a vigorous supporter of the Salem witch trials (as well as a major contributor to their ideology), which gives some idea of the quality of his religion.

ETA: One way that the effect of the Protestant Work Ethic has been detected: Protestants are hurt more by unemployment than people from other denominations are (it’s about 40% worse, apparently). People living in Protestant societies are hurt more by unemployment than others are. Extensive checks show effects indeed derive from an intrinsic appreciation of work.