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Did Christianity Cause the Crash?
Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del
Padre's success can be measured by upgrades in real estate. The mostly
Latino church, in Charlottesville, Virginia, has moved from the pastor's
basement, where it was founded in 2001, to a rented warehouse across the
street from a small mercado five years later, to a middle-class suburban
street last year, where the pastor now rents space from a lovely old Baptist
church that can't otherwise fill its pews. Every Sunday, the parishioners
drive slowly into the parking lot, never parking on the sidewalk or grass-"because
Americanos don't do that," one told me-and file quietly into church. Some
drive newly leased SUVs, others old work trucks with paint buckets still in
the bed. The pastor, Fernando Garay, arrives last and parks in front, his
dark-blue Mercedes Benz always freshly washed, the hubcaps polished enough
to reflect his wingtips.
It can be hard to get used to how much Garay talks about money in church,
one loyal parishioner, Billy Gonzales, told me one recent Sunday on the
steps out front. Back in Mexico, Gonzales's pastor talked only about "Jesus
and heaven and being good." But Garay talks about jobs and houses and making
good money, which eventually came to make sense to Gonzales: money is
"really important," and besides, "we love the money in Jesus Christ's name!
Jesus loved money too!" That Sunday, Garay was preaching a variation on his
usual theme, about how prosperity and abundance unerringly find true
believers. "It doesn't matter what country you're from, what degree you
have, or what money you have in the bank," Garay said. "You don't have to
say, 'God, bless my business. Bless my bank account.' The blessings will
come! The blessings are looking for you! God will take care of you. God will
not let you be without a house!"
Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with thick black hair combed back. In
his off hours, he looks like a contented tourist, in his printed Hawaiian
shirts or bright guayaberas. But he preaches with a ferocity that taps into
his youth as a cocaine dealer with a knife in his back pocket. "Fight the
attack of the devil on my finances! Fight him! We declare financial
blessings! Financial miracles this week, NOW NOW NOW!" he preached that
Sunday. "More work! Better work! The best finances!" Gonzales shook and
paced as the pastor spoke, eventually leaving his wife and three kids in the
family section to join the single men toward the front, many of whom were
jumping, raising their Bibles, and weeping. On the altar sat some anointing
oils, alongside the keys to the Mercedes Benz.
Later, D'andry Then, a trim, pretty real-estate agent and one of the church
founders, stood up to give her testimony. Business had not been good of
late, and "you know, Monday I have to pay this, and Tuesday I have to pay
that." Then, just that morning, "Jesus gave me $1,000." She didn't explain
whether the gift came in the form of a real-estate commission or a tax
refund or a stuffed envelope left at her door. The story hung somewhere
between metaphor and a literal image of barefoot Jesus handing her a pile of
cash. No one in the church seemed the least bit surprised by the story, and
certainly no one expressed doubt. "If you have financial pressure on you,
and you don't know where the next payment is coming from, don't pay any
attention to that!" she continued. "Don't get discouraged! Jesus is the
answer."
America's churches always reflect shifts in the broader culture, and Casa
del Padre is no exception. The message that Jesus blesses believers with
riches first showed up in the postwar years, at a time when Americans began
to believe that greater comfort could be accessible to everyone, not just
the landed class. But it really took off during the boom years of the 1990s,
and has continued to spread ever since. This stitched-together, homegrown
theology, known as the prosperity gospel, is not a clearly defined
denomination, but a strain of belief that runs through the Pentecostal
Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, with
varying degrees of intensity. In Garay's church, God is the "Owner of All
the Silver and Gold," and with enough faith, any believer can access the
inheritance. Money is not the dull stuff of hourly wages and bank-account
statements, but a magical substance that comes as a gift from above. Even in
these hard times, it is discouraged, in such churches, to fall into despair
about the things you cannot afford. "Instead of saying 'I'm poor,' say 'I'm
rich,'" Garay's wife, Hazael, told me one day. "The word of God will
manifest itself in reality."
Many explanations have been offered for the housing bubble and subsequent
crash: interest rates were too low; regulation failed; rising real-estate
prices induced a sort of temporary insanity in America's middle class. But
there is one explanation that speaks to a lasting and fundamental shift in
American culture-a shift in the American conception of divine Providence and
its relationship to wealth.
In his book Something for Nothing, Jackson Lears describes two starkly
different manifestations of the American dream, each intertwined with
religious faith. The traditional Protestant hero is a self-made man. He is
disciplined and hardworking, and believes that his "success comes through
careful cultivation of (implicitly Protestant) virtues in cooperation with a
Providential plan." The hero of the second American narrative is a kind of
gambling man-a "speculative confidence man," Lears calls him, who prefers
"risky ventures in real estate," and a more "fluid, mobile democracy." The
self-made man imagines a coherent universe where earthly rewards match
merits. The confidence man lives in a culture of chance, with "grace as a
kind of spiritual luck, a free gift from God." The Gilded Age launched the
myth of the self-made man, as the Rockefellers and other powerful men in the
pews connected their wealth to their own virtue. In these boom-and-crash
years, the more reckless alter ego dominates. In his book, Lears quotes a
reverend named Jeffrey Black, who sounds remarkably like Garay: "The whole
hope of a human being is that somehow, in spite of the things I've done
wrong, there will be an episode when grace and fate shower down on me and an
unearned blessing will come to me-that I'll be the one."
I had come to Charlottesville to learn more about this second strain of the
American dream-one that's been ascendant for a generation or more. I wanted
to try to piece together the connection between the gospel and today's
economic reality, and to see whether "prosperity" could possibly still seem
enticing, or even plausible, in this distinctly unprosperous moment. (Very
much so, as it turns out.) Charlottesville may not be the heartland of the
prosperity gospel, which is most prevalent in the Sun Belt-where many of the
country's foreclosure hot spots also lie. And Garay preaches an unusually
pure version of the gospel. Still, the particulars of both Garay and his
congregation are revealing.
Among Latinos the prosperity gospel has been spreading rapidly. In a recent
Pew survey, 73 percent of all religious Latinos in the United States agreed
with the statement: "God will grant financial success to all believers who
have enough faith." For a generation of poor and striving Latino immigrants,
the gospel seems to offer a road map to affluence and modern living. Garay's
church is comprised mostly of first-generation immigrants. More than others
I've visited, it echoes back a highly distilled, unself-conscious version of
the current thinking on what it means to live the American dream.
One other thing makes Garay's church a compelling case study. From 2001 to
2007, while he was building his church, Garay was also a loan officer at two
different mortgage companies. He was hired explicitly to reach out to the
city's growing Latino community, and Latinos, as it happened, were
disproportionately likely to take out the sort of risky loans that later led
to so many foreclosures. To many of his parishioners, Garay was not just a
spiritual adviser, but a financial one as well.
Many of the terms and concepts used by prosperity preachers today date back
to Oral Roberts, a poor farmer's son turned Pentecostal preacher. Garay grew
up watching Roberts on television and considers him a hero; he hopes to send
all three of his children to Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In
the late 1940s, Roberts claimed his Bible flipped open to the Third Epistle
of John, verse 2: "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper
and be in health. Even as thy soul prospereth." Soon Roberts developed his
famous concept of seed faith, still popular today. If people would donate
money to his ministry, a "seed" offered to God, he'd say, then God would
multiply it a hundredfold. Eventually, Roberts retreated into a life that
revolved around private jets and country clubs.
Roberts's fame had faded by the late 1980s, and prosperity preaching briefly
imploded soon after. We all remember Tammy Faye Bakker and her mascara
tears, along with her husband, Jim, and his various scandals. They took
their place in a procession of slick, showy faith healers on Christian
television who ultimately succumbed to earthly temptation.
But since that time, the movement has made itself over, moving out of the
fringe and into the upwardly mobile megachurch class. In the past decade, it
has produced about a dozen celebrity pastors, who show up at White House
events, on secular radio, and as guests on major TV talk shows. Kirbyjon
Caldwell, a Methodist megapastor in Houston and a purveyor of the prosperity
gospel, gave the benediction at both of George W. Bush's inaugurals. Instead
of shiny robes or gaudy jewelry, these preachers wear Italian suits and
modest wedding bands. Instead of screaming and sweating, they smile broadly
and speak in soothing, therapeutic terms. But their message is essentially
the same. "Every day, you're going to live that abundant life!" preaches
Joel Osteen, a best-selling author, the nation's most popular TV preacher,
and the pastor of Lakewood Church, in Houston, the country's largest church
by far.
Among mainstream, nondenominational megachurches, where much of American
religious life takes place, "prosperity is proliferating" rapidly, says Kate
Bowler, a doctoral candidate at Duke University and an expert in the gospel.
Few, if any, of these churches have prosperity in their title or mission
statement, but Bowler has analyzed their sermons and teachings. Of the
nation's 12 largest churches, she says, three are prosperity-Osteen's, which
dwarfs all the other megachurches; Tommy Barnett's, in Phoenix; and T. D.
Jakes's, in Dallas. In second-tier churches-those with about 5,000
members-the prosperity gospel dominates. Overall, Bowler classifies 50 of
the largest 260 churches in the U.S. as prosperity. The doctrine has become
popular with Americans of every background and ethnicity; overall, Pew found
that 66 percent of all Pentecostals and 43 percent of "other Christians"-a
category comprising roughly half of all respondents-believe that wealth will
be granted to the faithful. It's an upbeat theology, argues Barbara
Ehrenreich in her new book, Bright-Sided, that has much in common with the
kind of "positive thinking" that has come to dominate America's boardrooms
and, indeed, its entire culture.
On the cover of his 4 million-copy best seller from 2004, Your Best Life
Now, Joel Osteen looks like a recent college grad who just got hired by
Goldman Sachs and can't believe his good luck. His hair is full, his teeth
are bright, his suit is polished but not flashy; he looks like a guy who
would more likely shake your hand than cast out your demons. Osteen took
over his father's church in 1999. He had little preaching experience,
although he'd managed the television ministry for years. The church grew
quickly, as Osteen packaged himself to appeal to the broadest audience
possible. In his books and sermons, Osteen quotes very little scripture,
opting instead to tell uplifting personal anecdotes. He avoids controversy,
and rarely appears on Christian TV. In a popular YouTube clip, he declines
to confirm Larry King's suggestion that only those who believe in Jesus will
go to heaven.
Yap
wrote:
We all see how the Christian professional makes their living
handsomely.
All they need is to sell "promises"........and they get paid 10% from
each hard earned money tax free.