At least two false religions circulate among America’s evangelicals.
One is that God anointed Trump to save our country (see, e.g., story here). (From what, or who?) This is so plainly baloney, and propaganda, it merits no discussion.
The other is so-called “prosperity gospel” theology, which simplified teaches that greed is good.
It’s actually more insidious. As Raw Story says (here), it’s “an evangelical school of thought that equates poverty with sinfulness and argues that the rich achieved prosperity because God blessed them.” It also claims the rich are “morally superior.”
This flies directly in the face of everything the New Testament says about Jesus’s teachings, the most famous exposition of which is,
“And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” — Matthew 19:24 (King James Version)
So expect to meet “prosperity gospel” preachers and adherents in Purgatory or Hell. It seems like a plank straight out of a GOP platform; but with origins stretching back into the 19th century, its roots have been around much longer than contemporary “greed is good, hate the poor” Republicanism (read Wikipedia essay here), although it serves that political ideology very well.
One of its origins is an influential 1889 article by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, one of history’s richest men, who opposed self-indulgence and argued the rich have a social responsibility to engage in philanthropy (read synopsis here). Obviously it took a lot of twisting to bend Carnegie’s thoughts into a “greed is good, the poor suck” philosophy.
Note the transmogrification of “poverty sucks” into “the poor suck.” While this is a giant moral leap, it’s (apparently) a tiny intellectual step for conservatives; in any case, one they made easily, without taking a deep breath.
It isn’t hard to figure out how and why religion got wrapped around a notion like the rich are morally superior and the poor are moral defects. Cloaked it in religion passes the buck (to God), and provides convenient justification for the unjustifiable.
(Religion was used to justify burning people at the stake and a lot of other nasty things. Nowadays conservatives’ moral self-righteousness is deployed to justify defunding school lunch programs and demonizing battered single mothers who go on welfare to escape their abusers. Turning the evil traits of human nature into religious creeds is one of humanity’s more devilish hypocrisies.)
“Prosperity gospel” is totally bogus. Nothing in the Bible or Jesus’s teachings justifies it; it’s a construct of bad people, by people, and for bad people.
One of its more colorful contemporary promoters (they’re all flamboyant) is self-styled pastor Creflo Dollar (below, with his private jet), whose creed is separating congregants from their money for his own self-aggrandizement (read his profile, and list of assets, here).
Some, like Paula White (top photo), are political (see profile here). We needn’t discuss that “moral” and “Trump” don’t go together. Typically, “prosperity gospel” doesn’t concentrate on promoting conservative politics and Republican candidates, as mainstream evangelism tends to. Its primary mission is helping selfish people feel good about being selfish.
But its adherents are as reactionary, intolerant, and hypocritical as the rest of the evangelical crowd, which makes them anything but real Christians, as the real Jesus would define the term.
