The Sordid, Secret World of Televangelists and Megachurches

What if believing in success became the same thing as succeeding? Religious figures around the world encourage their followers to equate financial donations with future material gains. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they dive into the heart of Prosperity Theology to find the facts, fiction, and the stuff Prosperian Theologists don't want you to know.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers. Since government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Well, hello,

(00:25):
and welcome back to the ministry of stuff they don't
want you to know. They call me Matt and I
have no the illuminated one, brown shaving rama, Shama, Mama, mamada,
are doing that scene from Temple of Doom. It's I
was momentarily speaking in tongues forgive me, I was covering
my heart. I think that's uh, that's um just saying

(00:48):
kalim and then you're supposed to say, I'm num Sharbai.
Isn't that right? Oh? Yeah, I guess from Temple of Doom. Calm, Well,
we're talking about a different kind of temple today. There
we go, not necessarily one of Doom, but you know potentially. Yeah,
they call me Ben you are you? This is uh
not the Indiana Jones Temple of Doom tribute show. This

(01:12):
is stuff they don't want you to know. And know.
Your segue was fantastic. What are we talking about today? Today?
We're talking about a little something called prosperity theology or
I guess we could also think of it as televangelism.
Yes it Yeah, So here we go another religious episode.

(01:32):
It's not particularly religious. We're not talking about a religion
so much as we're examining some of the people operate
it within it and a movement the US that you
have maybe heard about. And yeah, I think televangelism absolutely
ties into this. We hear the phrase evangelists, but what
does that mean. It's a person who seeks to convert

(01:53):
other people to a certain faith. That is also known
as proselytizing. It's typically used in a Christian context here
in the West. You know, we don't hear much about
Buddhist evangelists, so we don't even know if that's a thing.
So the connotation here involves public speaking and or performance.

(02:14):
So while uh, for instance, our super producer Casey Pegram
for today, we just have a stable of superproducers these
days in the money, a posse of a super positive
superproducers in a stable. So we'll pick on Casey a
little bit and use him as an example. If Casey

(02:37):
was proselytizing people, he might just decide to write a letter,
you know what I mean. Like, dear, let's pick some
one random dear al Franken or Donald Trump or whomever. Uh,
I sincerely believe in this particular thing, and I think

(02:57):
you should too, you know, and it could be any
sort of um spiritual idea. So it's a solicitation basically. Yeah,
it's a solicitation in that regard. And that's probably a
very polite letter because Casey is a very talented writer. Yeah.
We and we just had Dragon Con here and you
will always see at least something that I see every
year during dragon Con are evangelists who are proselytizing in

(03:19):
the streets with big signs, you know, talking about Christianity
and come to Jesus and all that. It's it's a
thing you've probably seen. Yeah, they were a little lazier
this year. I saw one dude that just had a
boom box that was playing a message on loop and
he just stood there holding the song. He's there all weekend.
You know, it's it's hard work. He can't sit down,
maybe as lunch break or something. Yeah, it seemed a

(03:41):
little phoned into me. Which there was a yelp for
a street corner protests that would be great. So evangelism
is a little bit more in your face. That's the connotation. Uh,
we're Casey Um practicing a type of proselytization called evangelism.
He would maybe go the whole nine, you know, a

(04:03):
linen suit, a tent that travels across the sun belt.
Super producer Casey Pegram's Powerhouse of Signs, Wonders and deliverance.
I'm actually selling myself on this. What do you What
do you think? Casey? Okay, we got a thumbs up,
and uh, you're you're familiar with this in fiction and
you're familiar with this um with the televised version of it,

(04:25):
which called televangelists. Great example would be in the show Carnival.
There there is a whole traveling preacher scenario where they
set up a tent and you know people um speaking
tongues and sometimes get the Holy Spirit in them, laying
hands and all of that. A lot of that old
school kind of showmanship that goes into this idea of evangelism. Yeah,
and I also remember one of my favorite creepy versions

(04:47):
of it is the tent revival preacher in True Detective
Season one, who has this rambling monologue that is super
love crafty and a sinister but people are treating it
as though you know, they were in listening to a
sermon on the gospel, And isn't that just one appearance
of that guy? Like, if that's it, I think he
comes back, but he's very briefly. You've never seen preachy,

(05:11):
But boy does it ever set that doom. He sees
your true face, he sees it reminds me of when
I saw a third eye blind. And he's talking about
seeing people's true faces, the singer, and he says, you
know what, I want to see your true face. And
when I see him, you know what they're gonna be saying.
They're gonna say, f Yeah. Well, it turns out it's
a bit he does. It's a little bit of a
street preacher kind of vibe. So he is perhaps also

(05:34):
proselytizing for the Church of Third Eye Blind. Uh. The
term evangelism derives from Uh biblical sources in or modern connotation.
Started as a Greek word. It originally meant something like
messenger of good news, which is why you would hear
people say, have you heard the good news? And that's
all about Jesus died for your sins and came back.

(05:54):
And if you believe in him then you get to
go to heaven. That's or it's a Geico commercial. Okay,
it's possible. It's just we live in a weird time, right. Yeah.
So we've got evangelical Christianity. Right. You'll often hear evangelism
assigned to that. And so, for instance, there could be

(06:14):
a a Methodist evangelist, right, there could be any any
degree of Protestant. They've got a several doctrinal things in common.
One of the biggest, of course, is the emphasis on
the born again nature of religious salvation. Yes, right, and
here in the United States we've had really a special

(06:36):
relationship with evangelism. It's it's just thrived here in this country. Um,
I mean across the world as well, but here, I
would say, at least from my research and what I've seen,
it just thrives. Why do you think that is? That's
a great question. I think maybe it's just where I

(06:58):
don't know, maybe it matches up with the American dream
in some way. Yeah, the idea of rebirth. Perhaps. Yeah,
I don't know. I feel like I can culturally tie
it into some things. But yeah, I feel like there's
a reason that America is such a rich cultural soil
for this sort of stuff. But also this has expanded

(07:19):
now across the world. Wherever there are Protestants, they're also
going to be evangelical UM organizations and a huge political
movement I suppose you could call it, or at least
a big driver of political change the Republican Party specifically. Yeah,
and and also there's uh, I don't want to leave

(07:43):
the Catholic Church out. The thing we have to remember,
which may strike some some of us who are more
secular as surprising, is that although multiple denominations of a
given religion exists, in this case Christianity, with in those denominations,
there are movements right and those movements, as Noel said,

(08:05):
can often drastically affect the political landscape. In Central America, uh.
And in South America there is there was a movement
called Liberation Theology which these which totally struck the more
hawkish right wing part of the American government as a

(08:27):
threat because there are these left wing uh Catholic priest
who are saying, well, this is how we think Christianity
should be applied toward a more socialist environment, which is
you know, a big no, no, it's a big invitation
to the US to metal in countries affairs. But yeah,

(08:47):
they these um these genres or maybe denominations. Movements is
probably the best word, or not always created equally, like
some individual evangelical preachers have reached the pinnacle of start
him and success, you know, Casey Pegrum's Powerhouse of Signs,
Wonders and what was the other one? It's a long name.

(09:08):
You should have made it such a long name. And
some movements blossom only to enter a decline in later years.
One especially prominent here in the US and controversial type
of Christian belief system is known as prosperity theology. You
might not have heard the term before, you have definitely
heard of the women and men preaching it at the

(09:30):
top of the show. Yes, so hopefully they've heard it
at least once. Hopefully we've heard it at least once. Wait,
what's the idea here? So the idea here is that God,
what God wants for you is to be well like,
to be healthy, and to be financially blessed. God wants
that for you. The problem is with you. It's with

(09:51):
your faith. You don't have enough faith you you You've
got to have that. You've got to you have to
send money and donations to these places to essentially increase
your faith in a way like I'm going to give
this money in faith to a ministry and then I
am going to receive something back from that. I'm gonna
get my stuff back tenfold from God my blessings, or

(10:14):
at least that's according to the leaders of these particular denominations,
right then. Uh, yeah, So this is the idea. I
think that's a good summation there. Met. The idea is
that personal faith, what's called positive speech or positive confession,
and donations to religious causes will be repaid in terms

(10:38):
in material and literal terms, right as well as spiritual.
So it's not just karma, it's like cash. Yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. And the Bible is portrayed in a lot
of prosperity theology as a contract between God and humans
very if then proposition, if humans have faith in God,

(10:58):
God will deliver see purity and prosperity. Uh. Sickness and poverty,
interestingly enough, are viewed as curses that can be broken
by the power of faith. That's sort of the power
of positive thinking. And what I think what a lot
of people may be surprised to learn about this movement
is that it's built on a secular concept, the Secret. Basically, yeah,

(11:25):
it's built on a concept old and that the Secret
also borrows from called new Thought. It's popular in the
late nineteenth thirly twentieth century, and it was pretty much, Yeah,
the modern interpretation would be The Secret, that's the thing,
that's it's all about new Thought. It's it was a
book that was written that essentially says, you put positive

(11:48):
thoughts out into the world and you can make them real.
Anything that you truly believe you can make happen essentially,
which again is a later interpretation of the original new
Thought thing right from the eighteen late eighteen hundreds. Um,
so The Secret doesn't repackage this for a long time.

(12:09):
I just remember seeing that book everywhere, and I've never
had any idea what it was. It's because Oprah mentioned it,
because Oprah Winfrey said it well. The idea, the philosophy
behind New Thought was that the key to health and
wealth acquisition is thinking, visualizing, and speaking the right words.
And not all of the New Thought proponents or fans

(12:29):
were Christian, but they all generally held that the individual
human being had divinity and that they could affect physical
change through their mental state. Mind over matters the power
of positive thinking exactly, and that's what the secret is,
got it? More or less? I hope we didn't ruin
the book. Can you spoil a book like that? Kind

(12:53):
of you? You're supposed to buy it, that's the whole
point of the book. Yeah, but I mean surely no.
Dreading it will give you more benefit than just hearing us.
You know. Well, well you could also you could buy it,
or you could just think positively that it's already in
your house, let me know what happens, or just that think,

(13:15):
imagine and visualize that you've already read it now, I know,
I'm I'm not. I don't mean to sound rude. There
are quantitative studies that prove the at least the medical
effects of positive thinking in terms of recuperation rates, stuff
like that. Um, but we're talking mind control here, right.

(13:37):
In other words, if you could correctly channel your mental energy,
you could harness material results almost, you know, very quickly.
A man named Norman Vincent Peel was pastor of place
called Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, and he
popularized this idea in these techniques in America with his
book The Power of Positive Thinking, which I know you've

(13:59):
heard of his real book. I could have written that book,
and I just came up with that a minute ago.
My friend's mom had that book on her shelf when
I was in middle school, Rember, I never touched it. Oh,
they wouldn't let you touch it. No, I just been
shrined in glass. I can just see it seeing there
with a bunch of other self self help stuff, just

(14:20):
all about you know, being positive and getting what you want.
We should write a self help book. Yeah, I can
write one. It feels like it'd be easy. It feels
like it'd be easy to write a self help book,
but really difficult to write a good one. That's exactly exactly,
very much my friend. Growing up, my dad just had
like all the Stephen King books and I didn't read

(14:40):
those either because that was too scarred. Yeah, and read
those until high school. Oh man, which you guys still
down to go see it at four o'clock today, Yes,
that's true. We're going to go have an adventure. We're
gonna go see a team adventure and we'll have to
cover my ears. Has anyone seen it yet? I have? Oh? Sorry,
that you're on the ball kind of person I am.

(15:01):
You can just you warned me about the jump scares. Okay, okay, okay,
you give me a sharp elbow to the rib with something.
Do you want me to sit behind you and just
occasionally lean in and go here it comes? We could
get that app that's just children laughing app. It should
be uh, you're welcome technology. Uh. I guess you're welcome

(15:25):
venture capitalists. Sorry, we've got a little bit off the rails.
Please let us know what you think of it. Obviously
we're excited to go see the film. So the Power
Positive Thinking Seminal book. In books from this time period,
we can discern some of the key recurring elements of
what would we can see the d NA ultimately what
would become prosperity Gospel. Speaking the right words, invoking a

(15:48):
universal law of success with the words, and having faith
in oneself and those abilities. So a lot of these
ideas influenced, among tons of others. E. W. Kenyon, who
was an evangelist and the founder of the Bethel Bible Institute.
So his particular approach to theology was the basis for
one of the Prosperity Gospel's most particular features. Um, speaking

(16:11):
the right words to bring about a new reality manifesting.
You know, what you believe, what you wish to be true. Um,
so what you confess you possess. It's kind of like
a reverse version of like The Traveler and Ghostbusters, or
actually full circle like it, you know, where the kids
see the monster as whatever they fear the most. This

(16:32):
is like a positive version of that. I could go
with that. Yeah, I wanted to bring it, you know. Yeah,
Kiyan is a link to the popular prosperity preachers that
formed the foundation of the modern prosperity gospel movement. Earlier,
we had asked about why this took such strong route.

(16:57):
I'm starting to see it a little. Why it floor
It's quintessentially American and individualist. There's this idea that each
person is responsible for her or his own happiness or
you know, whatever their gender might be, and their health
and their situation in life. And then applying mental energy
in the appropriate direction is in and of itself sufficient

(17:19):
to cure any ills. The idea of positive thinking as
a panacea, but then also bootstraps. But then also bootstraps.
So there. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because There
are a couple of other contributing concepts in play here.
There's pick yourself up by your yeah, yeah, back when
people always have bootstraps, yeah, to the little loops at
the top. I honestly don't know what they hang up

(17:44):
on a peg? Yeah sure, yea, they definitely feel they're
pulling them on. For pulling them on, it's like that.
If they're at the back, I think, uh, you can
hang them places right by the straps boot hangers. Man, hey,
right in and let us know how you use your bootstraps.
Do you hang your boots or do you just do
you just pull them like a tab so you can

(18:04):
pop your heel in and bat. Well, what does the bootstrapping?
Let's get into this. So the idea here is that
there are two as as I said, there are two
contributing concepts in play. In addition to this philosophical concept
that you thought, there's the idea of capitalism, more specifically,
the way a lot of Western culture idolizes the Protestant

(18:27):
work ethics so called. In very important author named Max
Feber published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
and in this he said specifically that Protestants have a
different approach to labor and that this approach to labor
is uh crucial to the development of capitalism and industrialization.

(18:50):
He mainly thought about group that is that were called
the Calvinist Right, and they believed in this idea of predestination,
which is a really cool and depressing concept. The idea
was a flat circle idea, how so that God like
everything exists and was created as God created it. So

(19:13):
essentially God knows who's going to heaven, who's going to hell, like,
who's gonna be good, who's gonna write You're born damned
or safe? And no free will? Right essentially, yeah, no
free are like automatons that are just set on a path,
a predetermined path, and that is all we can possibly achieve.
And we can still get in uh, we can still
get in trouble though that's also the worst. But if

(19:34):
you want to get into um the mindset of some
of this predestination um and just the religious atmosphere of
the time, probably some of the most strange and terrifying
things to read are old sermons. One of the bangers

(19:56):
of this, one of the breakout singles is a piece
called Sinners, and they end of an angry God and
it's it's terrified, right. This uh sermon contains ten considerations
that are all pretty pretty much downers. Uh. God may
cast wicked men into hell at any given moment, several

(20:17):
very specific things about the wicked and uh, the the
idea that God is like this anti hero and in
action film and it's coming for you. And just just
let you know how it ends. Uh. Okay to spoil this,
do you think? I think so. I think it's been

(20:38):
out for stat limitations. Okay, to spoiled. Okay, all right?
From Jonathan Edwards that centers in the hand of the
angry guy. It ends like this. Therefore, let everyone that
is out of Christ now awake and fly from the
wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now
undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let

(21:00):
everyone fly out of sodom haste and escape for your lives.
Look not behind you, Escape to the mountain lest you
be consumed. Beautiful. I know, I don't know if they
like pause for a band to play, if everybody just
sort of files out. Well, here's the thing. There are

(21:20):
a lot of humans on this planet. Even now that
I'm assuming take that very seriously. When I think the
evangelicals in general are sort of the equivalent of like
strict constitutional constructionists, where it's like the Bible is to
be taken pretty literally, and a lot of their tenants
come from specific passages, even in terms of tithing, which

(21:43):
we'll get into a little later. And in in uh
Max Weber's idea about the Protestant work ethic, he argues
that Protestants were looking for outward signs of God's favor money,
material goods, and for ways to express inward virtue, that
being hard work, which those bootstraps that would be the

(22:03):
inward virtue, like working working diligently to better yourself shows
your shows your inner goodness, and then the devotion, right,
and then that devote and that reward has shown in
like you know, your physical success, and if you believe

(22:24):
that you're predetermined to be good, right, So if you're
doing good things, it's almost that you have to believe
that you are predetermined to be good. So it's this
interesting cycle feedback. Yeah, exactly. And so today this interpretation
is still the subject of a lot of debate, but
it's a popular perspective. And when we come back we'll

(22:47):
tell you about the final contributing thread to the formation
of prosperity theology. We've returned. We made it. Do you
guys have a good break? Yeah. We talked a little
more about centers in the hand of Angry God, which

(23:08):
is just that guy is writing fire there um the
final contribution to the DNA of what we call prosperity
theology today, it's the development of charismatic Pentecostal churches in
the US. This is an umbrella term for a decentralized
group of churches. We're talking like hundreds and hundreds of denominations,

(23:29):
over seven hundred. They're characterized by an emphasis on what's
known as spiritual gifts or charisms, from which the term
charismatic is drawn. A worshiper might experience, for example, the
gift of faith healing, right, or uh, gloss alalia, which
is the fancy dressed up with the tie word. Everything

(23:53):
sounds like glossa la la la la la for speaking
in tongues, right. I love the word. It's fun to say.
When you say glass, you say it repeatedly, it's kind
of sounds like you're talking to form follows function. It's
kind of like ulu late. I don't know that one,
but I love it. That's when people go oh w
w wa. It's a word that describes very specific sound,

(24:13):
like when you go, oh, I can't do it. My
throat's a little messed up. But I think it, you know,
like wa wa. That was a little high for me,
just to get back into this. The tradition of worship

(24:33):
in this way, it meant for the believer that God
will manifest in some concrete way to the fateful the
people who are worshiping. So you're physically going to have
something happen when you're thinking about God and worshiping God
in your mind. Do you have an example? Yeah, Well,

(24:56):
those are the examples of the speaking in tongues or
the running feelings handling. Yeah. Yeah. Also, so like when
you see somebody kind of like going into convulsions or whatever,
or like someone's the preachers laying hands and then all
of a sudden they start, like, you know, touching you.
So in addition, the decentralized nature of these churches means

(25:18):
that there's room for individual leaders to become sort of
the focus of personality based organizations. Many of these UH
officials or preachers might practice faith healing or similar practices,
and they would build up these very devoted UH personal
followings with this, with these three ideas right Protestant work ethic,

(25:43):
new thought philosophy, and UH charismatic Pentecostal preaching. With these
three kind of vultronning and captain planeting together, prosperity theology
bubbles to the surface. And it started like the work
ethic Max Weber describes as a way to judge, sify
the big elephant in the room of most human civilizations.

(26:06):
During the Gilded Age in the US, it came around
to justify why some people were rich and others any
many more were poor. I love this next quote. We've
got an early prosperity Gospel proponent, the Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell,
Oh boy, get it a little on the nose um

(26:26):
he told his mostly poor congregation in nineteen fifteen. Quote,
I say you ought to be rich, You have no
right to be poor. Why the very idea of the
nerve running around with no shoes, impoverishing left and right,
what's next? Pick yourself up by your bootstrap exactly. He's punishing,

(26:47):
or he's saying that you were being punished because of
your failures, not because of some larger structural inequality that's
keeping these people in a state of and this this
kind of interpreting Asian regardless value feel about it. It
went pretty far, and it was pretty well known. God
was occasionally portrayed as a banker dispensing money material goods

(27:09):
to the deserving, and Jesus Christ, as some was seen
as the first and best capitalist. It's a very modern
spin on very very old stories, and it took off
in some circles, and today prosperity theology has a pretty
significant amount of support. In two thousand and six, a
pull from The Times found that seventeen percent of American

(27:30):
Christians identify explicitly like, yes, I am part of prosperity theology.
That means that there's a good chance that a number
of people having this conversation with us and listening would
identify themselves in that way a little less than one
out of five. Well that's really great. Later on, we're

(27:50):
gonna need to hear from you and we'll we'll get
to it. Yeah, absolutely, because again, not all, not all
churches practicing prosperity theology are the same, or I would
even say in some cases remotely related. Right, So of
the American Christians polls believe that if you give your

(28:12):
money to God, God will bless you with more money,
and a full six agree with the more general idea
that God wants people to be prosperous. However, mainstream evangelicals
are a lot of them, can't you gotta generalize a
little bit? They consider this prosperity theology to be a
heresy in a way, something not of the true faith.

(28:35):
And why here's where it gets crazy. There are a
lot of critics. H they don't believe the official stance
of the proponents, and instead of seeing them as motivated
or motivational religious figures, those skeptical prosperity theology see these
people as essentially con artists. Conway Twitties. Did you know,

(29:02):
and this is a sidebar, do you know in Nashville?
I think it was Nashville, there was a thing that
would spring up like a seasonal amusement park. It was
called Twitty City, and it was Conway Twitty And they
also had the rights to like the tweet tweety bird cartoon,
you know, like the Yellow Bird City, and they would

(29:23):
call it Twitty City. I thought, yeah, I is that
the one that's the one, that's the one. I would
think six Flags would have that unlock. Yeah, that would
make a lot more sense. Must be some kind of
must be some kind of backroom deal going on between
Twitty and Yeah. It was a different, different world back then.

(29:43):
I got a camel license there. For some reason, they
had a thing where you could ride camels like a
breeding license test. No, I just said, I got a
license to operate a camel. Maybe they have the Renaissance
Fair here you don't have to have a license though.
That's pretty intense. No, I was. I think it. I
was a kid and they're like, oh, here you go,

(30:03):
just a cute thing. Yeah, I don't think it was.
I don't think it would be a situation where we
were the later on an airplane or a boat and
someone goes, oh, no, is there a camel operator in
the house. You have that covered. Um. Before we get
too deep into this, I just want to point out
that there are degrees of this stuff too, and we're

(30:25):
going to talk about some of the extreme ones upfront,
and then you know, as it's a lot of this
stuff filters into more mainstream kind of accepted religious culture
as well, but we're going to kind of start with
some of the more extreme ones. And we're not saying
that tithing or giving to your faith or giving to
your church is inherently a bad thing at all. It's

(30:48):
a personal choice. But we're gonna start with some examples
where I don't think anyone would argue that there is
a little bit of ill intent, but there's at least
some abuse going on of some sorts. Well, as we
said before, as we all I say, we're not going
to tell you what to believe or interfere with your
own spiritual practices. It's a very personal and private matter.
And we did say, I think we said earlier in

(31:09):
the show too, that these these movements are not created equally,
and uh, in some cases, what was the language they used,
they might not even be remotely related. They believe in
health and wealth, but a very different ideas of how
to get there. And and to that point, as we
said before, a lot of the critics, some of the
strongest critics, come from the church. Prosperity theology is certainly

(31:32):
not a part of mainstream evangelicalism. In fact, evangelicals have
condemned for a large part Prosperity Gospels to know in
certain terms. Just for the past few decades, even you'll
hear some of the loudest criticism of this stuff, along
with its most well known practitioners like good old Joel Austin,

(31:52):
probably one of the most successful religious figures of his
sort currently and caught some bad press recently in the
wake of Hurricane Harvey because his staff said that the
church was inaccessible with due to flooding, and that turned out,

(32:14):
of course, not to be the case. You know, I
don't I don't pretend to know the exact particulars of
what went on at that church for that thing, but man,
it is surprising to see how quickly social media can
blow something like that up, where just you know, a
couple of thousand retweets and oh, man, Joel Austin has

(32:35):
got to go on the news. The Internet has always
been a fickle mistress with capricious favors, right. So yeah,
there's a guy named Gordon Fee, a prominent Pentecostal scholar,
who wrote a book called The Disease of Health and
Wealth Gospels. Uh, there's a Calvinist pastor named John Piper
who said the prosperity gospel will not make anyone praise Jesus.

(32:56):
It will make people praise prosperity. It's like an all
you're creating. Yeah, and there's a Utah pastor named Rick
Henderson who said Joel Austin frequently misunderstands important matters of
faith and doctrine. And this that last criticism seems to
be based more on the the nuts and bolts of

(33:18):
knowing the Bible, right I do. Also, while we were
mentioning books, want to highlight Blessed, a History of the
American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Boehler. Yeah, it's it's it's monographic.
It's probably the best work of its kind out currently,
if you'd like to read more. Secular forces also criticized

(33:38):
prosperity theology and accuse it of exploiting the poor. This
accusation is a response to prosperity theology is heavy, and
we mean heavy emphasis on tithing. So in prosperity theology,
tithing or giving money to the church should ideally be
someone's first fruits, their initial earnings. For so, if we

(34:01):
want to go uh, if if we want to be
brass tacks about it and more specific, then that would
mean of your gross income your net income tim percent
of your pre tax So Uncle Sam comes second, Uncle
Sam comes second, Sally May comes third. Credit card debt,

(34:22):
UH alimony payments, food mortgages, medical debt, which is one
of the primary causes of UH financial personal disaster in
this country. So this money, this tithing is seen as
an investment. By showing faith, parishioners could have a hundredfold

(34:42):
return on their investment. This is a reference to a
verse in the Gospel of Mark about those who suffer
for Christ receiving a hundredfold what they had lost. In
his book Laws of Prosperity, Ken Copeland have rights. Do
you want a hundredfold return on your money? Give and
let God multiply it back to you. No bank in
the world offers this kind of return. Praise the Lord.

(35:04):
From this perspective, tithing is a financially responsible thing to
do that sounds like a like a like a hot deal.
It really does, doesn't it You just it just feels
so predatory when you think about people that might be
watching a program at a certain time on television, the
elderly a lot of times, but there may also be

(35:25):
cases where human psychology is a tricky thing. There may
also be cases where people believe this has worked for them.
People think, well, I gave my last five dollars as
seed prayer money, and immediately afterwards I got that job
or that inheritance, or I've found the straps on my
boots and it turns out they work, you know. And

(35:48):
it's it's also a self fulfilling prophecy though for you know,
the more wealthy. I would say, right, so if you're
like tithing and that's a big part of your life
and you've you've been doing it for a long time,
you could argue that accounts for your continued prosperity and success.
Whereas I think that I would be interested to see
the offset between donations by wealthy UM church members versus

(36:13):
you know, more lower class, middle middle to lower class
members and how those smaller donations add up and if
they equal, if not exceed, that of the very wealthy contributions,
because I would say, you know, the the hook is,
I'm not doing so well. I need to give what
little money I have in order to do better. So

(36:36):
it's like you gotta spend money to make money, right,
That just checks out. That's just business. Can I just
just really quickly interject a personal thing. Of course, going
to church as a kid, I would notice, you know,
I wasn't really paying attention to this, but I would
notice that a couple of times a year there would
be a prosperity just a sermon that was all based

(36:58):
on prosperity, and it was all about tithing. It was
about why you have to do it, why you should
or yeah, why you should do it, and why you
kind of have to do it. Faith. I was Methodist
UM but and then became nondenominational, but it never changed.
It never changed. There was always this big push to
make sure you're giving X amount of your money to

(37:18):
the church at all times. It's like Pledge Drive week
on NPR. It's exactly like that, isn't it. Well, yeah,
more ways than one. Because a church depends upon its
congregation absolute prisoners. So you know, I think there's nothing
wrong with having to support that organization. I guess what
I'm saying is that it's so normalized for anyone who

(37:41):
has been going to any kind of church for any
amount of time that the jump to prosperity theology I
don't think is that far. Oh I see what you're saying, Okay,
and that's what I'm saying at the top of this
section too. It's like they're extreme examples, but this these
concepts trickled down into more accepted mainstream like what you're
talking about. Like, I don't think they were pushing that

(38:02):
line every day, and they certainly wanted to remind you,
give you a little kick in the pants, Like the
NPR Pledge Drive. You know that, Hey, this stuff doesn't
come for free, you know, he help us out. Yeah,
I always feel sorry for the folks on the NPR
Pledge Drives. Towards the end, you could tell they're really
feeling it because people who don't write into them all
year right into him during the Pledge Drive, going, I

(38:24):
can't believe you're doing the Pledge Drive. This is not
what I had my radio on for what when I
used to work for public radio, I had to do
little spots like that for the Pledge Drive And it's
very specific language. We always had to end them with
and thank you. Yeah, it's kind of creepy. But like
we had like these very strategic meetings where like we
have the person that headed up the Pledge Drive, like

(38:44):
helping shake the language for the whole thing and like
to make it most effective and all this stuff. And
the thing they do now is they, hey, help us
meet our goal early and we'll end the pledge drive.
We're holding the good shows hostage. Yeah. So, uh so
we do see this stuff occurring. And that's not the
only criticism. There's also a related criticism, uh, concerning tax exemptions.

(39:08):
This is a real hot button issue here in the US.
Like almost any other religious institution in the States, organizations
touting prosperity theology do not have to pay taxes. Yeah.
One of my favorite criticisms of this was a couple
of years back in John Oliver on his Just Fantastic

(39:29):
Show Last Week's Tonight formed the Church of Our Lady
of Perpetual Exemption, which was entirely stated only to be
a church to avoid paying taxes. Yeah, and uh, it
actually made a ton of money. They were sent all
kinds of donations, including some including jars of semen. You

(39:50):
could just say there was the sex sexual seeds and
then sex toys, jars of semen, and cash and heavily
featured in that Segmently you're talk about was one of
your favorite prosperity theologian lists. Yes, that is correct, Kreflo
Dollar here in Atlanta, Kreflo Dollar, prosperity theologian who maintains

(40:13):
that Kreflo Dollar is his reel and god given name. Astely,
I just want you to know that, he says that
is his real name. And he needs those planes. You
guys send in your money. He needs those planes. So
not to get too far into my fascination with this person,
but this is a person who made the national headlines

(40:36):
in in the States when he had a fundraising drive
to buy a new private plane for the purposes of
spreading the gospel. There was a previously owned private plane. Uh.
Their side of the story is that it was unsafe
and out of shape. So they're gonna buy a new one,

(40:57):
right U. And he did something brilliant in the in
his speaking. Okay, he doesn't ask people to donate. He
asked them to believe in God. So he says, you know,
I need this many people to believe in God for
fifty fifty dollars, you know. And then and then people

(41:21):
who are opponents are therefore telling this guy and his
prisoners that they cannot believe in God. They're telling me
that I can't believe in God for a house, for car,
for new job. Well, I'm gonna believe even more now
it's time for double x amount of people to give

(41:41):
or something like that. So that's fascinating and wow, there
are stories to the side, like they say that the
plane was unsafe to fly and that they needed the
plane right. Uh. Critics also believe that preachers and prosperity
theology movement are misusing church funds, squirreling donations away in
personal bank accounts, spending money meant for the church on

(42:02):
lavish personal items. You know, Rolls Royce's high end cars, uh,
luxury living situations. But he talks about that. He like
hypes up his his exorbitant wealth and talks about how
he deserves it and barely shies away from the fact
that his followers are paying for it. Don't take my

(42:23):
word for it. Let's listen to a little sample of
Kreflo dollar in action on evil pursue with sinners, but
to the righteous, goods shall be repaid. I'm telling you
this year has been crowned with goodness, and God Almighty

(42:48):
has our date and pre arranged for you and I
to live the good life. So I want you to
get ready. If you're not living the good life, get ready,
God says. Here he getting ready to repay the right
says with some good and Mr Dollar is not the
only one. Let's go back to just one of my

(43:11):
favorite prosperity ministers. Do you have a favorite too, He's
absolutely my favorite. I grew up with him watching television
as a kid before school. As gentleman's name is Robert Tilton.
He started out in seventy four, well before I was born,
but he grew his ministry into one of the largest
in the country by the nineties. And guess what, He's

(43:33):
got a website and still going strong today. He has
like a wive live webcast that he does. I have
vivid memories of this guy watching on TV. He was fascinating.
He would speak about all these modern day miracles that
could come true in your life. All you had to
do was have faith and donate. He would also speak

(43:54):
in tongues quite regularly, and he would call out somebody
like he would. This was on regular TVs television between
stuff in the mornings in commercial time before the first
commercial has come on at like five or six or
something like that, Yeah, where are you up at five hand?
My mom was a teacher, so I was. I was

(44:14):
at school really early, but I was fascinated by this
guy and I would just I would just sit there
and watch him and I would be okay with it
before the commercial came on, and I thought it was fun.
But the biggest thing he said, or at least I
gathered from him and then just reassured myself after looking
up now, is that all your money problems originate with
your sins, the things that you're doing. But if you

(44:35):
send donations to his ministry, you're going to get those
blessings back. I mean, he said it just right out there.
He wasn't, you know, playing around with the idea or anything.
He just said that. And at the time, his ministry
had this direct mailing arm, you might say, the biggest
part of it that would send you items that you're

(44:56):
either supposed to touch your in you interact with them
in some way, and then you send it back to
the ministry. Yeah right, yes, you can you already see
like what's going on here. You send me a miracle
prayer cloth, you pray with it, you know, you interact
with it, then you send it back, but you send
it back with your faith, your donation, right, and then

(45:17):
you keep that going with people who watch your show,
and uh, it's it's pretty crazy. They were prayer cloths, um,
these little chords they would send you that you pray
with again and then it gets put on some wall
of deliverance. Um. There was a hand tracing where if
you put your hand on it, Uh, well yeah, you
can make it into a turkey. But then you send

(45:38):
it back with your donation. And then Robert Tilton's gonna
put his hand where you put your hand. And you
think he had like somebody to do it for him. Well,
let's let's let's get into that, because the interaction was
always on you. Right, Robert Tilton wasn't sending you a
thing that he put his hand on essentially or that way.

(45:59):
That's a bad example. But you had to send the
thing back to them for the interaction to occur, so
you never saw it. You both had faith that your
donation is going to do something for you and right,
I mean it was fascinating to me. And ABC News
did an investigation in well, uh specifically looking at the
direct mailing service. Uh, and they found that that alone

(46:24):
brought in his ministry in nineteen nine one eighty million
dollars a year, and he wasn't doing what he said
he was doing. No, did they find like a giant
like pile of hand tracings. And they looked at the
dumpsters in the banks, because there were numerous banks that
were used. And this is all by the way, I

(46:44):
hope I can even talk about this. It's from there
were libel lawsuits that ended up getting thrown out, and
a bunch of appeals and much of other stuff. But uh,
they found just tons and tons of fan not fan mail, gosh,
I'm sorry that's the wrong word. But these letters and
the donations and the little objects, the the special water

(47:05):
that they would send you, it was just thrown away
with the donations were taken. The wires you had to
buy them in the first place, probably right, No, no, no.
They would send stuff to you as like a gift
in a way, uh, that you would interact with and
send back. But did it did it directly correlate with
your level of giving, Like back to the NPR model
where you get a coffee cup at one level and
then like a tote bag. Oh, I'm sure some of

(47:26):
that existed. I didn't. I didn't find much of that.
We'll we'll circle back. There's more to it, though we
don't have to go into If you're interested and this
whole thing, you can look up Robert Tilton and you
may know who this person is. If you don't recognize
the name. If you were alive while the internet video

(47:46):
phenomenon was beginning, you may remember something called farting Preacher,
and this is the person who's featured in those videos. Uh.
They are highly they can be highly offensive, depending on
what you believe. They are satirical and in my opinion,
at least as a kid watching them or a younger
person watching them, the funniest thing I've ever seen. I

(48:08):
can attest personally as a thirty four year old man,
having never seen this before in my life. When you
showed it to me earlier, I was in stitches. It's amazing.
It's amazing, but um, you know, buy or beware. It
could potentially ruffle your vetage. Did you Uh? Did we
mention the scripts that the phone operators were using. Oh yeah,

(48:29):
that was also in the dumpsters, and in particular with
those scripts, it said you're not allowed to be on
the phone Oh no. They even had a service that
would cut the phone off if the person in the
call center was talking for more than seven minutes, because
they volume was of such a level that you couldn't
stay on the line that longer. And they wouldn't accept

(48:50):
anything any donation below a hundred dollars. So if you
are calling because you are lonely and you need someone
to talk to, they will hang up. Well, they give
you seven minutes, and if you've got a hundred dollars,
you know you might get on the good graces. So this, uh,
you can clearly see in this situation there was stuff

(49:11):
that Tilton didn't want you to know, which is that
they were not reading it. They were not even according
to their own internal logic, providing the considerations that they
said they would. Yeah, dude, there's so much more to
money wasn't going to these uh what he said. He
was supposed to have several orphanages in Haiti that apparently

(49:34):
didn't exist when ABC investigated, and a lot of the
money that was being donated was supposed to go there,
but it didn't. And he had he had numerous mansions, guys,
this this guy had so many mansions in boats and
cars and uh, it's just really disturbing him. It makes
me angry. So he's not the only one though, he's

(49:58):
not the only fish in the shoal here, No, you
still got Here's just another one. I threw in here
because I think it's noteworthy. Maybe two younger people who
might be listening. If you've ever heard of something called
super Deluxe, which is a thing. It's a video I
don't know a network. I guess it's kind of a
video networking. They have a YouTube channel as well, and

(50:20):
there's a guy named Vic Burger who is a producer
and editor and he makes he makes these Jim Baker
videos specifically about Jim Baker's newest ministry. And he's been
around for a long time. Remember you might remember Tammy
Faye Baker and Jim Baker. They got into some legal issues.
He ended up having to go to jail for a while. Um,

(50:41):
well he's back and his most recent stuff is all
based on preparing people for what's to come for civilization,
like the end timesation. Yeah, exactly exactly. Let's hear one
of those Vic Burger clips. Just to give you a sense,
God gave us a new leader, gave us a new president,
and he says, if we don't occupy it, the enemy

(51:02):
will come back in. And that's what they're trying to do.
They're trying to kill. They're trying to get him out
of office. Kill kill. Okay, there we go. That's a
that's a pretty good uh, that's a pretty good sample.
And people can find it on YouTube. It's a food though, right, yes,
and and you if you go on the website, they

(51:23):
will accept donations for the following. There's an expanded fuel
List Generator package that costs only three thousand, five hundred dollars.
There's also the like Noel said, the buckets of food.
It's called the Staying Alive Time of Trouble. You can
get thirty two buckets of food for dollars. But my
favorite and kind of to see how this whole thing functions,

(51:46):
is the complete grocery Store Special for three thousand dollars.
But it has in the description of this item that
the value of the food you're getting is two thousand
and nine dollars, but you're paying quite a bit more
for that. So essentially you're donating to the ministry and
getting something that you will probably use or at least

(52:09):
is that wrong then if they have the actual value
of the stuff I was addressed exactly. I it actually
made me feel a little better about it. But still,
you know, he's making money on scaring you into believing
the you know, the end of the world is on
its way and somehow you're gonna be able to be

(52:30):
a prepper for this and be okay, I don't know.
It still rubs me the wrong way. And Vic Burger
is hilarious in his videos, but it's maybe it's not
quite as bad anymore. I totally agree. I think the
transparency and the pricing is interesting and potentially makes it
a little less egregious. But when you look at these
they they look like a um, you know, Billy May's

(52:54):
infomercial where they're totally like selling you a product like
it is very much not frame as tithing to the church.
It's very much like this is what you need by
this to prepare for the end of the world, and
you only can get it here, folks. So there's that.
So again it's a matter of degree. You know, it
would be unfair to people of faith at large to

(53:18):
say that all of these practices or these practitioners are
inherently somehow wrong or morally bankrupt. Several of them, I
would argue, are and do have stuff they don't want
you to know, but not all of them. We have
more examples that will return to after a quick word

(53:39):
from our sponsors. We have returned NOL. There was one
particular example that you were talking about off air before
we before stepped into the booth the room, so the
compound and yes, this all originated after I showed no

(53:59):
all the farming preacher clip. He showed me a clip
of Justin Bieber hanging out at hill Song. Is that
what it was called? Hillsng in l a UM it
is a megachurch UM that was founded in uh Sydney,
New South Wales, Australia, nineteen eight three by Brian and
Bobby Houston UM and it has since expanded across five

(54:23):
countries in Europe, Asia and the America's UM and then
it broadcasts online two over a hundred and sixty nations,
has more than a hundred thousand worldwide attendees and they're
eighty affiliated churches UM and so it's it's you know,
when you think of megachurches, you think about this UM
like rock concert kind of atmosphere where rather than like

(54:45):
a traditional church, these things take place in like arena
type settings, thousands and thousands of people, high production value,
from the actual sermons to the music. It's these like
cold Play style rock shows with like lights and you know,
l eds and even pyrotechnics and all kinds of bells
and whistles. And this is one of the most successful

(55:10):
kind of brands, this Hillsong thing, largely because of its
association with many celebrities now, especially like the Biber thing um.
And there's another super deluxe video with Biber hanging out
with two of the pastors, and there's this part where
he's like brushing his teeth while they're talking about stuff,
and there's this whole like expand my borders, oh Lord section,

(55:30):
which is great. I recommend just type in Biber bill song.
We're not gonna bust that one out here. But this
is what I was talking about earlier, where it's like,
I don't know if I would necessarily peg these people
as specifically being prosperity theologians or a prosperity religion, but
it's a huge part of it because it's got this
inherent flash and you know, it's glossy, high production, value

(55:54):
quality and this sense that you know of of success
that goes along with it with these celebrity of phillyations.
And they push very hard for tithing. They are Pentecostal
and they are again that very strict interpretation of the
Bible which encourages tithing, and they equate that to give
ten percent of your income. Yes, of course, yes to

(56:18):
the church. And you know, you look at their sites,
there is a very robust page for you know, contributing
to this organization. They have a music group like you know,
like the Universal Music Group, like a record label basically
where they put out and um make large sums of money.
I would imagine on these Christian rock type bands. I

(56:40):
used to listen to this stuff. Yeah, well, and I
lift your name on high seeing that I don't think,
I mean, I don't think that's inherently wrong. I'm just
because I was exposed to that. We've I came from
that youth group Culchure as well. In these songs are
forever embedded in my brain. And I resent that a

(57:02):
little bit before we get into the bed whatever you're
about to hit. And while I just want to bring
it up, but it is an interesting question of when
an organization gets this large, at what point does it
become just this money making machine when it's that huge.
And you could say the same thing about any large
church or the Vatican. Remember when we talk about the

(57:25):
Vatican Bank and the just the money that gets poured
into their Yeah, and the and the weird part comes
from the tax exempt and aspect of it, where you know,
this is lining the pockets of the founders and the
high level officials in these organizations, and they're not paying
any tax on it, you know, and they own massive
amounts of real estate like in Australia alone, I mean,

(57:48):
the value of the property that Hillsong owns is unprecedented
and they even I think we're we're trying to enter
into an agreement with UM the Government of Sydney to
dive develop a huge area of of the of the
city and it ultimately that didn't happen because like an
independent council recommended against it. But we're talking big, big

(58:10):
spending power here, and the ability to really shape the
politics of a particular area where the whole sway even
beyond it. Absolutely, and I don't want to get to
to even this because I don't think it's entirely relevant
what we're talking about, but I think it's interesting. Um,
the father of the founder of Hillsong ran into some
legal trouble involving an accusation of a molestation of one

(58:34):
of the child in his congregation when he was a
Pentecostal pastor. And we won't get too a new here.
It's really not particularly relevant, except in the fact that
there does seem to have been some influence perhaps if
you look at the details of the case that could
have come from, you know, whether or not it was
in choosing to level the accusations or not. The mother

(58:57):
of the child made some statements that indicated that she
viewed these folks as royalty in this town, and there
was a sense that we you know, they can do
no wrong. So there's that psychological aspect, maybe not necessarily
manipulating the legal system, but you know, there's a lot
of power that comes with being in these positions. In
people's minds, you know, that are following you, they ascribe

(59:21):
certain almost superhuman notions, you know, traits to to the
folks that are like in controlling these kinds of huge organizations. Absolutely,
and that's not just Native to prosperity theology. But to
like bring it back there, I would argue that many
times that problem is compounded in prosperity theology. Uh. One

(59:42):
thing we would be remiss about that we've talked about.
We've we've proved a tax exemption a little bit, right,
But there is a reason, and there's a good reason,
that religious organizations in the US are exempt from paying taxes.
It's the least worst answer to a very big potential problem,
which is that taxing religions could lead to the loss

(01:00:04):
of freedom of religion. So what happens if there's you know,
if there's a group of people who have their own
private faith and don't have the money to pay for
the right to have a church, money that would go
or the right to practice the religion exactly, and money
that would go to the government, right, which you know,
might make it seem as though there's some connection, and

(01:00:27):
ideally having that separation would keep the It's like the
old Arabic proverb of like if a camel has his
nose in the tents, soon the camel will be in
the tent. You know, a slippery slope argument all about
camel's today. Yeah, I didn't mean to bring it back,
but it is a real proverb. And then obviously you
have people that establish, you know, ministries with nothing but

(01:00:50):
good intention, and there's a lot of charity that that
that comes from ministries and you know, philanthropy and helping
people in need, giving to the poor. I mean, religion
is a force of good most of the time. I
would argue at the base level, at the base level,
at its most pure core good, don't be a villain.

(01:01:14):
But I think that there are examples of folks like
we're talking about here, that maybe look at that tax
exemption status as like a way to create an international
money machines. Absolutely absolutely read about the rationalizations for buying
a private jet in a world where one billion people
die due to lack of toilets, you know what I mean,

(01:01:37):
Like in terms of priorities not having been sent as
some sort of divine messenger, It's pretty clear to me
that there are other things to spend money on. And
maybe true, maybe people get caught in a bubble with
the best of intentions, you know, and the priorities can
seem skewed. Uh. There is another double standard here, which

(01:01:58):
is that sure tax exempts and does exist for very
good reason. However, as Noll said earlier, it's completely clear
that large groups of motivated people in in many religious
organizations are being told how to vote yes, perhaps without
knowing an issue, um, perhaps without even reaching their own

(01:02:20):
conclusion through a spiritual, self guided journey. They're being told
that some greater reward, greater spiritual reward. And remember death
is can be really good forever, really bad forever, and
a lot of these belief systems and that depends on
how you vote. That's a dangerous thing for your country.

(01:02:42):
And that's a big voting block too. I mean, you know,
the evangelical vote was very successfully rallied in this most
recent presidential election, So there is great power there. And
when you start to ask yourself, where are these choices
coming from, Who is influencing these choices and to what end,
that's a whole another can of worms that we're not

(01:03:03):
even gonna, you know, dive into this episode, but that
could be one for the future. I think we should.
I think we should look at that influence because we
know that it is global. Right. Church and state interactions
occur in many many countries. The rules of churches when
there's mass civil unrest. Sure. Yeah, that separation we're always

(01:03:23):
talking about is a bit of window dressing, if you
ask me. Often, yeah, often. And Uh. Here, however, we
draw to a close with our examination of the ins
and outs of prosperity theology despite their critics, and there
are many the proponents of prosperity theology, and there are
many uh seems set to continue this work well into

(01:03:44):
the twenty first century. There's an interesting thing. There are
booms and busts with this sort of movement. So it
was very big in the fifties, right, and it was
very big in the eighties. So it may seem to
decline or wax and wane or for the over the decade.
I think somebody gets some figure gets a little too
big in the but or too well known, then gets

(01:04:08):
taken down, and then it kind of happens in that
way for a long time. It's not a big deal anymore,
and then somebody else gets a little too big because
if nobody's been talking about it. I think that's exactly
what happens, man. Uh. And now what we're left with
is the question how much of the money sent to
these organizations does go to spread the good word to
maintain and grow a church and religious organization to support

(01:04:30):
those in need, and how much goes into hidden bank accounts,
personal vehicles, clothing, trips, housing to cover up crimes. Right,
based on multiple interviews from multiple journalists over multiple decades,
that appears often to be the stuff they don't want

(01:04:50):
you to know. Al right here where we've reached the
time where we ask you, what do you think about
all this stuff? You know, we spent some time researching it.
We we've you know, we've given you our thoughts. What
do you think? Is this something that's positive in your
neck of the woods. Is it something you've been a

(01:05:10):
part of. Maybe you've got an anecdote of something that
came out of working with maybe Joel Austin. Maybe you
work in the church. Maybe you know maybe there's something
we're missing. Here would be your Joel Austen's personal page. Oh,
write to us. We're on Twitter and we're on Facebook.
You can find us. We're conspiracy stuff on both of those.

(01:05:32):
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(01:05:53):
all that good stuff. If you want to write to us,
we are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. I