March 21, 2023 • 67 mins
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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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, we're back, fellow conspiracy realist. This is another
classic episode for this week. I have to tell you, Matt,
dear friend, this is an episode I wish we could
do again, not because I think we did a bad job,
but because it's so much fun. It is fun. It
strikes right into my heart, like deep into my heart.
(00:22):
When we're talking about megachurches, televangelists, people who might be
using faith to turn a profit and you know, not
caring so much about the actual materials that are in
things they say, it's really frustrating, really hurtful, and it
makes me angry. I wish we could do one of
(00:43):
these a year, just to remind everybody, Hey, by the way,
this is happening still. Yeah, this is one for the
Kenneth Copeland's, the Kreflo dollars all their ilk. Let's learn
about prosperity theology, from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.
History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
(01:04):
now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Well, hello,
and welcome back to the ministry of stuff they don't
want you to know. They call me Matt, and I
(01:27):
have no the illuminated one brown sham Rama Shama, Mama
Mamada here 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 kaliman. And then you're supposed to say, I'm num Sharbai.
(01:47):
Oh isn't that right? Oh? Yeah, I guess so from
Temple of Doom him. Well, we're talking about a different
kind of temple today. There we go, not necessarily one
of the doom, but potentially. Yeah, they call me Ben
you are you? This is not the Indiana Jones Temple
of Doomed tribute show. This is stuff they don't want
(02:10):
you to know. And Null. Your segue was fantastic. What
are we talking about today? Today? We're talking about a
litt us something called prosperity theology, or I guess we
could also think of it as televangelism. Yes, that's certainly. Yeah,
it's an arm of it. Yeah, So here we go
another religious episode. It's not particularly religious. We're not talking
(02:32):
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 other people to a certain faith. That is
(02:52):
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. So while, for instance, our superproducer Casey
(03:17):
Pegram for today we just have a stable of superproducers.
These days, we are 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 was proselytizing people, he might just decide to
(03:38):
write a letter, you know what I mean, like, dear,
let's pick someone random, dear Al Franken or Donald Trump
or whomever. I sincerely believe in this particular thing, and
I think you should too, you know, and it could
be any sort of spiritual idea. So it's a solicitation basically, Yeah,
(04:02):
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
the streets with big signs, you know, talking about Christianity
and come to Jesus and all that. It's it's a
(04:23):
thing you've probably seen. Yeah, they were a little lazier
this year. I saw one dude that just had a
boombox that was playing a message on loop and he
just stood there holding the song. Well, he's there all weekends,
you know, it's it's hard work. He can't sit down
maybe as a lunch break or something. Yeah, and it
seemed a little phoned into me. Which there is a
yelp for a street corner protests that would be great.
(04:45):
So evangelism is a little bit more in your face.
That's the connotation. Were Casey practicing a type of proselytization
called evangelism, he would maybe go the whole nine. You know.
A linen suit, a tent that travels across the sun
belt superproducer Casey Pegram's Powerhouse of Signs, Wonders and Deliverance.
(05:09):
I'm actually selling myself on this. What do you What
do you think, Casey? Okay, we got a thumbs up. Ye.
And you're you're familiar with this in fiction and you're
familiar with this um with the televised version of it,
which called televangelist. Great example would be in the show Carnival,
there is a whole traveling preacher scenario where they set
up a tent and you know, people um speaking tongues
(05:31):
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
of it is the tent revival preacher in True Detective
Season one, who has this rambling monologue that is super
(05:52):
lovecrafty and a sinister but people are treating it as
though you know, they were in a listening to a
sermon on the gospel. 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 never see him preaching tone
set Yeah, but boy does it ever set that doom.
He sees your true feis, yeah, he sees. It reminds
(06:13):
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, woa.
It turns out it's a bit he does. It's a
little bit of a street preacher kind of vibe. Nice.
So he is perhaps also proselytizing for the Church of
Third Eye Blind. The term evangelism derives from biblical sources
(06:39):
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 and if you believe in him,
then you get to go to heaven. That's the good news.
Or it's a Geico commercial, Okay, it's possible. It's just
(07:00):
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 a Methodist evangelist, right,
there could be any any degree of Protestant. They've got
(07:21):
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 relationship with evangelism. It's
it's just thrived here in this country. I mean across
the world as well, but here, I would say, at
(07:43):
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 don't know, maybe
it matches up with the American dream in some way,
or the idea of rebirth. Perhaps. Yeah, I don't know.
I feel like I can culturally tie it into some things.
(08:08):
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 now across the world. Wherever
there are Protestants, they're also going to be evangelical organizations
big time and a huge political movement. I suppose you
(08:28):
could call it, or at least a big driver of
political change the Republican Party specifically. Yeah, and also there's
I don't want to leave the Catholic Church out. The
thing we have to remember, which may strike some of
us who are more secular as surprising, is that although
(08:50):
multiple denominations of a given religion exist, in this case Christianity,
within those denominations there are movements right and those movements,
as Noel said, can often drastically affect the political landscape.
In Central America and in South America there is there
(09:13):
is a movement called liberation theology, which these which totally
struck the more hawkish right wing part of the American
government as a 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,
(09:36):
which is you know, a big no no, it's a
big invitation to the US to medal in countries affairs.
But yeah, the the 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
stardom and success you know Casey Pegram Powerhouse of Signs, Wonders,
(10:01):
and what's the other one. It's a long name. Yeah,
I shouldn't 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
(10:22):
might not have heard the term before, you have definitely
heard of the women and men preaching it. We said
it at the 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
(10:46):
is with you. It's with your faith. You don't have
enough faith. 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.
(11:07):
I'm going to get my stuff back tenfold from God
my blessings, or at least that's according to the leaders
of these particular denominations, right then. 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
(11:29):
or positive confession, and donations to religious causes will be
repaid in 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
(11:52):
then proposition, if humans have faith in God, God will
deliver security and prosperity. 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 I think what a lot of people may be
(12:12):
surprised to learn about this movement is that it's built
on a secular concept, the secret. Basically, yeah, it's built
on a concept old and that the secret also borrows
from called new thought. It's popular in the late nineteenth
early twentieth century, and it was pretty much yeah, the
(12:33):
modern interpretation would be the Secret. What's the secret? That's
the thing that it's all about new Thought? It's it
was a book that was written that essentially says, you
put positive 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
(12:55):
the original New Thought thing right from the late eighteens.
So the Secret doesn't repackage this for a long time.
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
(13:15):
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
were Christian, but they all generally held that the individual
human being had divinity and that they could affect physical
(13:38):
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
of you you're supposed to buy it that's the whole
point of the book to it. Yeah, but I mean surely, no, no, no,
Doing it will give you more benefit than just hearing us,
you know, give the cliff notes. Well, well you could
(14:00):
also you could buy it, or you could just think
positively that it's already in your house, let me know
what happens, or you just think, 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
(14:23):
that prove the at least the medical effects of positive
thinking in terms of recuperation rates, stuff like that. But
we're talking mind control here, right. In other words, if
you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness
material results almost, you know, very quickly. A man named
(14:43):
Norman Vincent Peel was pastor of a 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 heard of
this book nineteen fifty two. I could have written that book.
I just came put that name a minute ago. My
friend's mom had that book on her shelf when I
(15:04):
was in middle school. I remember good read. I never
touched it. Oh, they wouldn't let you touch it. No,
I just remember been shrined in glass. Yeah. I can
just see it seeing there with a bunch of other
self self help stuff, just all about you know, being
positive and getting what you want. We should write a
self help book. Yeah, I could write one. It feels
like it'd be easy. It feels like it'd be easy
(15:25):
to write a self help book, but really difficult to
write a good one. That's what I'm saying, exactly, exactly
very much. Yeah, my friend growing up, my dad just
had like all the Stephen King books and I didn't
read those either because that was too scarred. No, yeah,
and read those until high school. Oh man, think of which.
You guys still down to go see it at four
o'clock today, Yes, that's true. We're gonna go have an adventure.
(15:47):
We're gonna go see a team adventure. I'm gonna have
to cover my ears. Has anyone seen it yet? I have? Oh? Sorry,
you're on the ball kind of person I am. You
can just you warn me about the jumps, okay, okay, okay,
you give me a sharp elbow to the rib would
something spooky. Do you want me to sit behind you
and just occasionally lean in and go here it comes.
(16:12):
We could get that app that's just children laughing. Oh
app it should be you're welcome technology, or I guess
you're welcome venture capitalists. Sorry, we've gone 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
(16:34):
this time period, we can discern some of the key
recurring elements of what would we can see the DNA
ultimately what would become prosperity Gospel. Speaking the right words,
invoking a 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,
(16:55):
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 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.
(17:18):
It's kind of like a reverse version of like the
traveler in Ghostbusters, or actually full circle like it, you know,
where the kids see the monster as whatever they fear
the most. This is like a positive version of that.
I could go with that. Yeah, I wanted to bring it,
you know. Yeah, Kigan is a link to the popular
(17:41):
prosperity preachers that form the foundation of the modern prosperity
gospel movement. Earlier we had asked about why this took
such strong route. I'm starting to see it a little
clearer and why it flourished. It's quintessentially American an individualist.
There's this idea that each person is responsible for her
(18:04):
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 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
(18:24):
said that, because there are a couple of other contributing
concepts in play here. There's like pick yourself up by
your yeah yeah, yeah, back when people always have bootstraps. Yeah,
those are the little loops at the top. I honestly
don't know what they do for hanging up your boots
on a peg. Yeah sure, yep. They definitely feel like
they're pulling them on. Yeah, pulling them on. It's like that.
(18:47):
If they're at the back. I think you can hang
them places by the straps, boots 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
pop your heel in And well what is the bootstrapping?
Let's get into this. So the idea here is that
(19:08):
there are two As as I said, there are two
contributing concepts in play. In addition to this philosophical concept
of the new thought, there's the idea of capitalism, more
specifically the way a lot of Western culture idolizes the
Protestant work ethic, so called. In nineteen o five, very
(19:28):
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 crucial to the development of
capitalism and industrialization. He mainly thought about group that is
(19:50):
that were called the Calvinist Right, and they believed in
this idea of predestination, which is a really uncool 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 essentially God knows who's going to heaven,
(20:13):
who's going to hell, like, who's going to 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 we can still get in trouble
though that's also the worst part. If you want to
get into the mindset of some of this predestination and
(20:41):
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 of this, one of the breakout
singles is a peace called Sinners in the Hand of
an Angry God. Yeah, and one it's It's terrified right.
(21:01):
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 very specific things about
the wicked and uh, the the idea that God is
like this anti hero and an action film and is
(21:24):
coming for you. And uh, just just to let you
know how it ends. Uh, okay to spoil this? Do
you think? I think so. I think it's been out
for stat limitations. Casey's okay to spoiled. Okay, okay from
Jonathan Edwards that sinners in the hand of the angry guy.
It ends like this. Therefore, let everyone that is out
(21:47):
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 everyone fly out
of sodom haste and disc for your lives. Look not
behind you, escape to the mountain lest you be consumed. Beautiful. Oh,
(22:08):
I know, I don't know if they like pause for
a band to play, or if everybody just sort of
files out. Wow. Well, here's the thing. There are a
lot of humans on this planet even now that I'm
assuming take that very seriously. Well, I think the evangelicals
in general are sort of the equivalent of like strict
(22:29):
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 we'll
get into a little later. Yea. And 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
(22:53):
and material goods, and for ways to express inward virtue,
that being hard work, where's those bootstraps that would be
the inward virtue? Like working, working diligently to better yourself
shows your shows your inner goodness, and then the right
(23:14):
and then that devote and that reward is shown in
like you know your physical success and if you believe
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
(23:36):
is still the subject of a lot of debate, but
it's a popular perspective. And when we come back, we'll
tell you about the final contributing thread to the formation
of prosperity theology. We've returned and we made it. Do
(24:01):
you guys have a good break? Yeah? Yeah. We talked
a little more about centers in the hand of Angry God,
which 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
(24:23):
decentralized group of churches. We're talking like hundreds and hundreds
of denominations, 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 glossolalia, which is
(24:47):
the fancy dressed up with a tie words. Everything sounds
like gloss for speaking in tongues, right, that's true. I
love the word. It's fun to say. When you say
glass la. If you say it repeatedly, it's kind of
sounds like you're talking tongues are warm fallows function. It's
kind of like ulu late. I don't know that one,
but I love it. That's when people go oh, it's
(25:09):
a word that describes very specific sound, like when you go, oh,
I can't do it. My throat's a little messed up,
but I think it, you know, like a wa la
la la and ululations. Oh that was a little high
for me. Yeah, just to get back into this the
(25:30):
tradition of worship in this way, it meant for the
believer that God will manifest in some concrete way to
the faithful, 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,
(25:54):
those are the examples. The speaking in tongues or running
feeling something happening in your 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,
flip out physically touching you. So in addition, the decentralized
(26:16):
nature of these churches means that there's room for individual
leaders to become sort of the focus of personality based organizations.
Many of these officials or preachers might practice faith healing
or similar practices, and they would build up these very
devoted personal followings with this, With these three ideas right
(26:40):
Protestant work ethic, new thought philosophy, and 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
justify the big elephant in the room of most human civilizations.
(27:05):
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 now, a little on the nose,
(27:25):
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, the nerve
running around with no shoes, impoverishing left and right. What's next? Yeah,
pick yourself up by your bootstrap. Exactly. He's punishing, or
(27:46):
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 poverty. And this kind of interpretation,
regardless value feel about it, it it went pretty far and
it was pretty well known. God was occasionally portrayed as
a banker dispensing money in material goods to the deserving,
(28:09):
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 Christians identify explicitly like yes,
(28:32):
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 going to need to
hear from you and we'll get to it. Yeah, absolutely,
(28:53):
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, thirty one percent of the
American Christians polls believe that if you give your money
to God, God will bless you with more money, and
(29:14):
a full sixty one percent 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.
And why here's where it gets crazy. There are a
(29:39):
lot of critics. Yeah, they don't believe the official stance
of the proponents. Instead of seeing them as motivated or
motivational religious figures, those skeptical prosperity theologies see these people
as essentially con artists. Conwells, Conway Twitties. Did you know,
(30:01):
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
(30:22):
call it Twitty City. I thought that, 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 a must be some kind of backroom deal going
on between Twitty and Yeah. It was a different, different
world back then. I got a camel license there. Wow,
(30:44):
for some reason, they had a thing where you could
ride camels like a breeding license test. No, I just
say I got a license to operate a camel. Also,
maybe they have the Renaissance Fair here. You don't have
to have a license though, that's pretty intense. No, I
would they gave it to I was a kid. Yeah,
and they're like, oh, here you go. Oh it was
just a cute thing. Yeah, I don't think it was.
I don't think it would be a situation where we
(31:06):
will be later on an airplane or a boat and
someone goes, oh, no, is there a camel operator in
the house. You'd have that covered. Before we get too
deep into this, I just want to point out that
there are degrees of this stuff too, and we're going
to talk about some of the extreme ones upfront, and
(31:27):
then you know, as it a lot of this stuff
filters into more mainstream, kind of sure 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
a personal choice. But we're going to start with some
(31:49):
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 always say, we're not going
to tell you what to believe or interfere with your
own spiritual practices. It's a very personal, in private matter.
And we did say, I think we said earlier in
the show too, that these movements are not created equally,
(32:12):
and in some cases, what was the language I used,
they might not even be remotely related. They believe in
health and wealth, but a very different ideas about how
to get there. 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 not a
part of mainstream evangelicalism. In fact, evangelicals have condemned for
(32:38):
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, probably
one of the most successful religious figures of his sort currently,
(32:58):
and it 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,
of course, not to be the case. You know, I
don't pretend to know the exact particulars of what went
(33:19):
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
thousand retweets and oh, man, Joel Austin's got to go
on the news. The Internet has always been a fickle
mistress with capricious favorites, right, So yeah, There's a guy
(33:41):
named Gordon Fee, a prominent Pentecostal scholar who wrote a
book called The Disease of Health and Wealth Gospels. There's
a Calvinist pastor named John Piper who said the prosperity
Gospel will not make anyone praise Jesus. It will make
people praise prosperity. It's like an idol you're creating. Yeah,
and there's a Utah pastor named Rick Henderson who said
(34:02):
Joel Austin frequently misunderstands important matters of faith and doctrine,
and that last criticism seems to be based more on
the the nuts and bolts of knowing the Bible. Right.
I do. Also, while we were mentioning books, want to
highlight Blest a History of the American Prosperity Gospel by
(34:25):
Kate Bohler. Thanks Kate Boler. Yeah, it's it's monograph and
it's probably the best work of its kind out currently
if you'd like to read more. Secular forces also criticize
prosperity theology and accuse it of exploiting the poor. This
accusation is a response to prosperity theology is heavy, and
(34:46):
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. We want to go
if we want to be brass tacks about it a
little more specific then that would mean ten percent of
(35:09):
your gross income. Yeah, your net income, ten percent of
your pre tax So Uncle Sam comes second, Uncle Sam
comes second, Sally May comes third. Credit card debt, alimony payments, mortgages,
medical debt, which is one of the primary causes of
(35:31):
financial personal disaster in this country. So this money, this
tithing is seen as an investment. By showing faith, parishioners
could have a hundredfold 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
(35:53):
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. 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
(36:16):
people that might be watching a program at a certain
time on television, the elderly a lot of times, but
there may also be cases where human psychology is a
tricky thing. There may also be cases where people believe
this has worked for them. Yeah, people think, well, I
gave my last five dollars as seed prayer money, and
(36:38):
immediately afterwards I got that job or that inheritance, or
I've found the straps on my boots. Yeah, and it
turns out they work, you know, And 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
(36:58):
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 church members versus you know, more
lower class, middle to lower class members and how those
smaller donations add up and if they equal, if not exceed,
(37:23):
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 it's like you got to
spend money to make money, right, Yeah, 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,
(37:46):
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 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.
Fact of faith. I was Methodist, oh okay too, and
(38:09):
then became nondenominational, but it never changed. It never changed.
There was always this big push to make sure you
were giving X amount of your money to 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,
(38:30):
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 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.
(38:51):
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 think they were pushing that line every day. 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. Yes, you know, help
us out. Yeah, I always feel sorry for the folks
(39:14):
on the NPR Pledge Drives. Toward the end, you could
tell they're really feeling it because people who don't write
into them all year right into them during the Pledge Drive, going,
I can't believe you're doing the Pledge Drive. This is
not what I had my radio on for. 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
(39:35):
and thank you. Yeah, it 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
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 show's hostage. Yeah, sou So we
(39:59):
do see this occurring. And that's not the only criticism.
There's also a related criticism concerning tax exemptions. 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. Wow. Yeah.
(40:21):
One of my favorite criticisms of this was a couple
of years back in twenty fifteen, John Oliver on his
fantastic show Last Week Tonight formed the Church of Our
Lady a perpetual exemption, which was entirely stated only to
be a church to avoid paying taxes. Yeah, and it
actually made a ton of money. They were sent all
(40:44):
kinds of donations, including some including jars of semen. You
could just say, yeah, there was the sex sexual seeds
and then sex toys, jars of semen and cash. Yeah,
and heavily featured in that segment that you're talking about
was one of your favorite prosperity theologian lists. Yes, that
is correct, Kreflo Dollar here in Atlanta, Kreflo Dollar, prosperity
(41:10):
theologian who maintains that Kreflo Dollar is his real and
God given name. Absolutely. I just want you to know that,
he says that is his real name. Yeah, 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
(41:31):
who made the national headlines in the States when he
had a fundraising drive to buy a new private plane
for the purposes of spreading the gospel. Yeah, there was
a previously owned private plane. Their side of the story
is that it was unsafe and out of shape. So
(41:54):
they're going to buy a new one, right, And he
did something really 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 one hundred
(42:15):
and fifty two hundred and fifty dollars, you know. And
then interesting, and then people who are opponents are therefore
telling this guy and his prishioners that they cannot believe
in God. They're telling me that I can't believe in God.
For a house, for car, for a new job. Well,
I'm going to believe even more. Now it's time for
(42:36):
double x amount of people to give ten thousand dollars,
right 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. Critics also believe that preachers and prosperity
theology movement are misusing church funds, squirreling donations way in
(42:58):
personal bank accounts, spending money for the church, u lavish
personal items, you know, rolls Royce's high end cars, luxury
living situations, and 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
(43:19):
his followers are pained for it. Don't take my word
for it. Let's listen to a little sample of Creflo
dollar in action. Oh Robert's thirteen, verse twenty one, evil
pursueth sinners, but to the righteous good shall be repaid.
(43:40):
I'm telling you this year has been crowned with goodness,
and God Almighty has ordained and pre arranged for you
and I to live the good life. So I want
you to get ready. If you're not living a good life,
get ready, God says here he getting ready to repay
the righteous with some good it. And mister Dollar is
(44:04):
not the only one. Let's go back to just one
of my 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
(44:25):
I was born, but he grew his ministry into one
of the largest in the country by the nineties. And
guess what, he's got a website and still going strong today.
He has like a 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
(44:47):
had to do was have faith and donate. He would
also speak in tongues quite regularly, and he would call
out somebody like he would This was like on regular
TVs on television between stuff in the morning. Yeah, in
commercial time before the first commercial has come on at
like five or six or something like that. Am. Yeah,
(45:09):
where are you up at five am? My mom was
a teacher, so I was at I was 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'd 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 it up now, is
that all your money problems originate with your sins, the
(45:32):
things that you're doing. But if you 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
(45:53):
send you items that you're 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 you interact with it. Then you send it back,
but you send it back with your faith, your donation, right,
(46:16):
and then you keep that going with people who watch
your show, and it's it's pretty crazy. There 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, a well, yeah, you
(46:36):
can make it into a turkey. But then you send
it back with your donation. And then Robert Tilton's gonna
put his hand where you put your hand, and you're
gonna think he had like somebody to do it for him. Well,
sign autographs. 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
(46:58):
or that way. 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 faith, right, I mean, it was fascinating to me.
And ABC News did an investigation in nineteen ninety one, well, uh,
specifically looking at the direct mailing service, and they found
(47:21):
that that alone brought in his ministry in nineteen ninety
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 bank, because there were
numerous banks that were used. And this is all, by
(47:42):
the way, I 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 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 donation and the little objects,
the special water that they would send you, it was
(48:05):
just thrown away. What the donations were taken. The water
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 that you would interact with and send back,
but 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 that existed. I didn't. I didn't
(48:26):
find much of that. We'll circle back. There's more to it, though,
we only have to go into If you're interested in
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 phenomenon was beginning, you may remember something called Farting Preacher,
(48:50):
and this is the person who's featured in those videos.
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
can attest personally as a thirty four year old man,
having never seen this before in my life. When you
(49:11):
showed it to me earlier this morning, I was in stitches.
It's amazing. It's amazing, but you know, buy or beware.
It could potentially ruffle your Vetash did did we mention
the scripts that the phone operators were using. Oh yeah,
that was also in the dumpsters, and in particular with
(49:32):
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
the volume was of such a level that you couldn't
stay on the line that longer. And they wouldn't accept
anything any donation below one hundred dollars. So if you
(49:52):
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 got one hundred dollars,
you know, you might get on the good graces. So this, uh,
you can clearly see in this situation there was stuff
that Tilton didn't want you to know, which is that
(50:13):
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
(50:33):
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 guy had so many mansions in boats and cars
and uh, it's just really disturbing him. It makes me angry.
(50:54):
So he's not the only one though, he's 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.
(51:15):
I guess it's kind of a video networking. They have
a YouTube channel as well, and 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.
You remember, you might remember Tammy Faye Baker and Jim Baker.
(51:36):
They got into some legal issues. He ended up having
to go to jail for a while. 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 times. 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
(51:58):
don't occupy, the enemy 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 that's
a pretty good sample. And people can find it on YouTube. Well, yeah,
it's a food though, right, yes, and you if you
(52:21):
go on the website, they 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 fifteen hundred dollars. But my favorite and kind of
(52:43):
to see how this whole thing functions, 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, one hundred and
ninety dollars, but you're paying quite a bit more for that,
So essentially you're donating to the ministry sure, and getting
(53:05):
something that you will probably use or at least it
might use. Is that wrong then if they have the
actual value of the stuff I was addressed, Yeah, exactly.
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
(53:26):
is on its way and somehow you're going to be
able to be a prepperer 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
(53:47):
look at these, they look like a you know, Billy
May's infomercial where they're totally like selling you a product
like it is very much not framed as tie thing
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.
(54:08):
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 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
(54:29):
they don't want you to know, but not all of them.
We have more examples that will return to after a
quick word from our sponsors. We have returned Noel. There
was one particular example that you were talking about off
(54:50):
air before we before stepped into the booth, the room,
so the compound, and yes, this all originated after I
showed Noel the far preacher clip. He showed me a
clip of Justin Bieber hanging out at Hillsong. Is that
what it was called? Yeah, Hillsong in La. It is
a megachurch that was founded in Sydney, New South Wales,
(55:15):
Australia in nineteen eighty three by Brian and Bobby Houston,
and it has since expanded across five countries in Europe,
Asia and the Americas. And then it broadcasts online to
over one hundred and sixty nations, has more than one
hundred thousand worldwide attendees, and there are eighty affiliated churches,
(55:37):
and so it's it's you know, when you think of megachurches,
you think about this like rock concert kind of atmosphere
where rather than like 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
(56:01):
lights and you know, LEDs and even pyrotechnics and all
kinds of bells and whistles. And this is one of
the most successful kind of brands, this Hillsong thing, largely
because of its association with many celebrities now, especially like
the Biber thing. And there's another super deluxe video with
(56:21):
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, which is great. I recommend just type
in Biber Hillsong. We're not going to 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
(56:46):
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 quality and this sense that you know
of success that goes along with it with these celebrity
of philations. And they push very hard for tithing. They
are Pentecostal, and they are again that very strict interpretation
(57:08):
of the Bible which encourages tithing, and they equate that
to give ten percent of your income grossing. Yes, of course,
yes to the church. And you know, you look at
their site, 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
(57:31):
label basically where they put out and make large sums
of money. I would imagine on these Christian rock type bands. Dude,
I used to listen to this stuff. Yeah, and I
lift your name on Hi to seeing here drums for that.
I don't think, I mean, I don't think that's inherently wrong. Absolutely.
(57:55):
I'm just because I was exposed to that. We've I
came from that youth group culture as well, and these
saws are forever embedded in my brain and I resent
that a little bit before we get into the bed
whatever you're about to hit and all. 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
(58:17):
that huge, right, And you could say the same thing
about any large church or the Vatican. Remember when we
talk about the Vatican Bank and that just the money
that gets poured into there. 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
(58:40):
they're not paying any tax on it, you know, and
they own massive amounts of real estate like in Australia alone.
I mean, the value of the property that Hillsong owns
is unprecedented. And they even I think we're trying to
enter into an agreement with the Government of Sydney to
develop a huge area of the city and it ultimately
(59:04):
that didn't happen because like an independent council recommended against it.
But we're talking big, big spending power here and the
ability to really shape the politics of a particular area
where they hold sway. Oh sure, even beyond it, Yeah, absolutely.
And I don't want to get too even to this
because I don't think it's entirely relevant what we're talking about.
But I think it's interesting. The father of the founder
(59:27):
of Hillsong ran into some legal trouble involving an accusation
of a molestation of one of the child in his
congregation when he was a Pentecostal pastor. And I 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
(59:48):
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 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
(01:00:09):
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 certain almost superhuman notions, you know,
traits to the folks that are like in controlling these
kinds of huge organizations. Absolutely, and that's not just native
(01:00:32):
to prosperity theology, but to like bring it back there,
I would argue then many times that problem is compounded
in prosperity theology. One thing we would be remiss about
that we've talked about. 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
(01:00:52):
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 of freedom of religion. Yeah,
so what happens if there's you know, if there's a
group of people who have their own private faith and
(01:01:13):
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 ideally having that
separation would keep the It's like the old Arabic proverb
(01:01:35):
of like if the camel has his nose in the tents.
Soon the camel will be in the tent. You know,
a slippery slope argument all about camels today. Yeah, I
didn't mean to bring it back, but it is a
real proverb. And then you obviously you have people that establish,
you know, ministries with nothing but good intention. And there's
a lot of charity that that comes from ministries, and
(01:01:57):
you know, philanthropy and helping people in knee 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, you know, core,
be good, don't be a villainy. But I think that
there are examples of folks like we're talking about here
(01:02:18):
that maybe look at that tax exemption status as like
a way to create an international money machine. So absolutely
absolutely read about the rationalizations for buying a private jet
in a world where one billion people die due to
lack of toilets. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like
in terms of priorities not having been sent as some
(01:02:41):
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.
There is another double standard here, which is that sure
tax ex does exist for very good reason. However, Asnel
(01:03:04):
said earlier, it's completely clear that large groups of motivated
people in many religious organizations are being told how to
vote yes, perhaps without knowing an issue, perhaps without even
reaching their own conclusion through a spiritual, self guided journey.
They're being told that some greater reward, greater spiritual reward.
(01:03:32):
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 a country. 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
(01:03:52):
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 other can
of worms that we're not even going to 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,
(01:04:13):
Church and state interactions occur in many, many countries. The
roles of churches when there's mass civil unrest. Sure, yeah,
separation we're always talking about is a bit of window dressing,
if you ask me. Often, yeah, often. And here, however,
we draw to a close with our examination of the
(01:04:34):
ins and outs of prosperity theology despite their critics. And
there are many the proponents of prosperity theology, and there
are many seem set to continuing this work well into
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
(01:04:58):
decline or wax and wane over the decade. I think
somebody gets some figure gets a little too big in
the or too well known, then gets 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.
(01:05:20):
And now what we're left with is a 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 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
(01:05:42):
from multiple journalists over multiple decades, that appears often to
be the stuff they don't want you to know. All
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've you know, we've
given you our thoughts. What do you think? Is this
(01:06:06):
something that's positive in your neck of the woods. Is
it something you've been a 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. Maybe you're
Joel Austin's personal page. Oh write to us. We're on
(01:06:28):
Twitter and we're on Facebook. You can find us. We're
conspiracy stuff on both of those. We are conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
(01:06:49):
stdwy TK. If you don't want to do that, you
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podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
All right, we're back, fellow conspiracy realist. This is another
classic episode for this week. I have to tell you, Matt,
dear friend, this is an episode I wish we could
do again, not because I think we did a bad job,
but because it's so much fun. It is fun. It
strikes right into my heart, like deep into my heart.
(00:22):
When we're talking about megachurches, televangelists, people who might be
using faith to turn a profit and you know, not
caring so much about the actual materials that are in
things they say, it's really frustrating, really hurtful, and it
makes me angry. I wish we could do one of
(00:43):
these a year, just to remind everybody, Hey, by the way,
this is happening still. Yeah, this is one for the
Kenneth Copeland's, the Kreflo dollars all their ilk. Let's learn
about prosperity theology, from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.
History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back
(01:04):
now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. Well, hello,
and welcome back to the ministry of stuff they don't
want you to know. They call me Matt, and I
(01:27):
have no the illuminated one brown sham Rama Shama, Mama
Mamada here 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 kaliman. And then you're supposed to say, I'm num Sharbai.
(01:47):
Oh isn't that right? Oh? Yeah, I guess so from
Temple of Doom him. Well, we're talking about a different
kind of temple today. There we go, not necessarily one
of the doom, but potentially. Yeah, they call me Ben
you are you? This is not the Indiana Jones Temple
of Doomed tribute show. This is stuff they don't want
(02:10):
you to know. And Null. Your segue was fantastic. What
are we talking about today? Today? We're talking about a
litt us something called prosperity theology, or I guess we
could also think of it as televangelism. Yes, that's certainly. Yeah,
it's an arm of it. Yeah, So here we go
another religious episode. It's not particularly religious. We're not talking
(02:32):
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 other people to a certain faith. That is
(02:52):
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. So while, for instance, our superproducer Casey
(03:17):
Pegram for today we just have a stable of superproducers.
These days, we are 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 was proselytizing people, he might just decide to
(03:38):
write a letter, you know what I mean, like, dear,
let's pick someone random, dear Al Franken or Donald Trump
or whomever. I sincerely believe in this particular thing, and
I think you should too, you know, and it could
be any sort of spiritual idea. So it's a solicitation basically, Yeah,
(04:02):
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
the streets with big signs, you know, talking about Christianity
and come to Jesus and all that. It's it's a
(04:23):
thing you've probably seen. Yeah, they were a little lazier
this year. I saw one dude that just had a
boombox that was playing a message on loop and he
just stood there holding the song. Well, he's there all weekends,
you know, it's it's hard work. He can't sit down
maybe as a lunch break or something. Yeah, and it
seemed a little phoned into me. Which there is a
yelp for a street corner protests that would be great.
(04:45):
So evangelism is a little bit more in your face.
That's the connotation. Were Casey practicing a type of proselytization
called evangelism, he would maybe go the whole nine. You know.
A linen suit, a tent that travels across the sun
belt superproducer Casey Pegram's Powerhouse of Signs, Wonders and Deliverance.
(05:09):
I'm actually selling myself on this. What do you What
do you think, Casey? Okay, we got a thumbs up. Ye.
And you're you're familiar with this in fiction and you're
familiar with this um with the televised version of it,
which called televangelist. Great example would be in the show Carnival,
there is a whole traveling preacher scenario where they set
up a tent and you know, people um speaking tongues
(05:31):
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
of it is the tent revival preacher in True Detective
Season one, who has this rambling monologue that is super
(05:52):
lovecrafty and a sinister but people are treating it as
though you know, they were in a listening to a
sermon on the gospel. 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 never see him preaching tone
set Yeah, but boy does it ever set that doom.
He sees your true feis, yeah, he sees. It reminds
(06:13):
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, woa.
It turns out it's a bit he does. It's a
little bit of a street preacher kind of vibe. Nice.
So he is perhaps also proselytizing for the Church of
Third Eye Blind. The term evangelism derives from biblical sources
(06:39):
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 and if you believe in him,
then you get to go to heaven. That's the good news.
Or it's a Geico commercial, Okay, it's possible. It's just
(07:00):
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 a Methodist evangelist, right,
there could be any any degree of Protestant. They've got
(07:21):
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 relationship with evangelism. It's
it's just thrived here in this country. I mean across
the world as well, but here, I would say, at
(07:43):
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 don't know, maybe
it matches up with the American dream in some way,
or the idea of rebirth. Perhaps. Yeah, I don't know.
I feel like I can culturally tie it into some things.
(08:08):
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 now across the world. Wherever
there are Protestants, they're also going to be evangelical organizations
big time and a huge political movement. I suppose you
(08:28):
could call it, or at least a big driver of
political change the Republican Party specifically. Yeah, and also there's
I don't want to leave the Catholic Church out. The
thing we have to remember, which may strike some of
us who are more secular as surprising, is that although
(08:50):
multiple denominations of a given religion exist, in this case Christianity,
within those denominations there are movements right and those movements,
as Noel said, can often drastically affect the political landscape.
In Central America and in South America there is there
(09:13):
is a movement called liberation theology, which these which totally
struck the more hawkish right wing part of the American
government as a 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,
(09:36):
which is you know, a big no no, it's a
big invitation to the US to medal in countries affairs.
But yeah, the the 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
stardom and success you know Casey Pegram Powerhouse of Signs, Wonders,
(10:01):
and what's the other one. It's a long name. Yeah,
I shouldn't 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
(10:22):
might not have heard the term before, you have definitely
heard of the women and men preaching it. We said
it at the 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
(10:46):
is with you. It's with your faith. You don't have
enough faith. 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.
(11:07):
I'm going to get my stuff back tenfold from God
my blessings, or at least that's according to the leaders
of these particular denominations, right then. 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
(11:29):
or positive confession, and donations to religious causes will be
repaid in 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
(11:52):
then proposition, if humans have faith in God, God will
deliver security and prosperity. 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 I think what a lot of people may be
(12:12):
surprised to learn about this movement is that it's built
on a secular concept, the secret. Basically, yeah, it's built
on a concept old and that the secret also borrows
from called new thought. It's popular in the late nineteenth
early twentieth century, and it was pretty much yeah, the
(12:33):
modern interpretation would be the Secret. What's the secret? That's
the thing that it's all about new Thought? It's it
was a book that was written that essentially says, you
put positive 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
(12:55):
the original New Thought thing right from the late eighteens.
So the Secret doesn't repackage this for a long time.
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
(13:15):
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
were Christian, but they all generally held that the individual
human being had divinity and that they could affect physical
(13:38):
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
of you you're supposed to buy it that's the whole
point of the book to it. Yeah, but I mean surely, no, no, no,
Doing it will give you more benefit than just hearing us,
you know, give the cliff notes. Well, well you could
(14:00):
also you could buy it, or you could just think
positively that it's already in your house, let me know
what happens, or you just think, 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
(14:23):
that prove the at least the medical effects of positive
thinking in terms of recuperation rates, stuff like that. But
we're talking mind control here, right. In other words, if
you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness
material results almost, you know, very quickly. A man named
(14:43):
Norman Vincent Peel was pastor of a 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 heard of
this book nineteen fifty two. I could have written that book.
I just came put that name a minute ago. My
friend's mom had that book on her shelf when I
(15:04):
was in middle school. I remember good read. I never
touched it. Oh, they wouldn't let you touch it. No,
I just remember been shrined in glass. Yeah. I can
just see it seeing there with a bunch of other
self self help stuff, just all about you know, being
positive and getting what you want. We should write a
self help book. Yeah, I could write one. It feels
like it'd be easy. It feels like it'd be easy
(15:25):
to write a self help book, but really difficult to
write a good one. That's what I'm saying, exactly, exactly
very much. Yeah, my friend growing up, my dad just
had like all the Stephen King books and I didn't
read those either because that was too scarred. No, yeah,
and read those until high school. Oh man, think of which.
You guys still down to go see it at four
o'clock today, Yes, that's true. We're gonna go have an adventure.
(15:47):
We're gonna go see a team adventure. I'm gonna have
to cover my ears. Has anyone seen it yet? I have? Oh? Sorry,
you're on the ball kind of person I am. You
can just you warn me about the jumps, okay, okay, okay,
you give me a sharp elbow to the rib would
something spooky. Do you want me to sit behind you
and just occasionally lean in and go here it comes.
(16:12):
We could get that app that's just children laughing. Oh
app it should be you're welcome technology, or I guess
you're welcome venture capitalists. Sorry, we've gone 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
(16:34):
this time period, we can discern some of the key
recurring elements of what would we can see the DNA
ultimately what would become prosperity Gospel. Speaking the right words,
invoking a 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,
(16:55):
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 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.
(17:18):
It's kind of like a reverse version of like the
traveler in Ghostbusters, or actually full circle like it, you know,
where the kids see the monster as whatever they fear
the most. This is like a positive version of that.
I could go with that. Yeah, I wanted to bring it,
you know. Yeah, Kigan is a link to the popular
(17:41):
prosperity preachers that form the foundation of the modern prosperity
gospel movement. Earlier we had asked about why this took
such strong route. I'm starting to see it a little
clearer and why it flourished. It's quintessentially American an individualist.
There's this idea that each person is responsible for her
(18:04):
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 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
(18:24):
said that, because there are a couple of other contributing
concepts in play here. There's like pick yourself up by
your yeah yeah, yeah, back when people always have bootstraps. Yeah,
those are the little loops at the top. I honestly
don't know what they do for hanging up your boots
on a peg. Yeah sure, yep. They definitely feel like
they're pulling them on. Yeah, pulling them on. It's like that.
(18:47):
If they're at the back. I think you can hang
them places by the straps, boots 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
pop your heel in And well what is the bootstrapping?
Let's get into this. So the idea here is that
(19:08):
there are two As as I said, there are two
contributing concepts in play. In addition to this philosophical concept
of the new thought, there's the idea of capitalism, more
specifically the way a lot of Western culture idolizes the
Protestant work ethic, so called. In nineteen o five, very
(19:28):
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 crucial to the development of
capitalism and industrialization. He mainly thought about group that is
(19:50):
that were called the Calvinist Right, and they believed in
this idea of predestination, which is a really uncool 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 essentially God knows who's going to heaven,
(20:13):
who's going to hell, like, who's going to 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 we can still get in trouble
though that's also the worst part. If you want to
get into the mindset of some of this predestination and
(20:41):
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 of this, one of the breakout
singles is a peace called Sinners in the Hand of
an Angry God. Yeah, and one it's It's terrified right.
(21:01):
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 very specific things about
the wicked and uh, the the idea that God is
like this anti hero and an action film and is
(21:24):
coming for you. And uh, just just to let you
know how it ends. Uh, okay to spoil this? Do
you think? I think so. I think it's been out
for stat limitations. Casey's okay to spoiled. Okay, okay from
Jonathan Edwards that sinners in the hand of the angry guy.
It ends like this. Therefore, let everyone that is out
(21:47):
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 everyone fly out
of sodom haste and disc for your lives. Look not
behind you, escape to the mountain lest you be consumed. Beautiful. Oh,
(22:08):
I know, I don't know if they like pause for
a band to play, or if everybody just sort of
files out. Wow. Well, here's the thing. There are a
lot of humans on this planet even now that I'm
assuming take that very seriously. Well, I think the evangelicals
in general are sort of the equivalent of like strict
(22:29):
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 we'll
get into a little later. Yea. And 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
(22:53):
and material goods, and for ways to express inward virtue,
that being hard work, where's those bootstraps that would be
the inward virtue? Like working, working diligently to better yourself
shows your shows your inner goodness, and then the right
(23:14):
and then that devote and that reward is shown in
like you know your physical success and if you believe
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
(23:36):
is still the subject of a lot of debate, but
it's a popular perspective. And when we come back, we'll
tell you about the final contributing thread to the formation
of prosperity theology. We've returned and we made it. Do
(24:01):
you guys have a good break? Yeah? Yeah. We talked
a little more about centers in the hand of Angry God,
which 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
(24:23):
decentralized group of churches. We're talking like hundreds and hundreds
of denominations, 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 glossolalia, which is
(24:47):
the fancy dressed up with a tie words. Everything sounds
like gloss for speaking in tongues, right, that's true. I
love the word. It's fun to say. When you say
glass la. If you say it repeatedly, it's kind of
sounds like you're talking tongues are warm fallows function. It's
kind of like ulu late. I don't know that one,
but I love it. That's when people go oh, it's
(25:09):
a word that describes very specific sound, like when you go, oh,
I can't do it. My throat's a little messed up,
but I think it, you know, like a wa la
la la and ululations. Oh that was a little high
for me. Yeah, just to get back into this the
(25:30):
tradition of worship in this way, it meant for the
believer that God will manifest in some concrete way to
the faithful, 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,
(25:54):
those are the examples. The speaking in tongues or running
feeling something happening in your 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,
flip out physically touching you. So in addition, the decentralized
(26:16):
nature of these churches means that there's room for individual
leaders to become sort of the focus of personality based organizations.
Many of these officials or preachers might practice faith healing
or similar practices, and they would build up these very
devoted personal followings with this, With these three ideas right
(26:40):
Protestant work ethic, new thought philosophy, and 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
justify the big elephant in the room of most human civilizations.
(27:05):
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 now, a little on the nose,
(27:25):
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, the nerve
running around with no shoes, impoverishing left and right. What's next? Yeah,
pick yourself up by your bootstrap. Exactly. He's punishing, or
(27:46):
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 poverty. And this kind of interpretation,
regardless value feel about it, it it went pretty far and
it was pretty well known. God was occasionally portrayed as
a banker dispensing money in material goods to the deserving,
(28:09):
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 Christians identify explicitly like yes,
(28:32):
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 going to need to
hear from you and we'll get to it. Yeah, absolutely,
(28:53):
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, thirty one percent of the
American Christians polls believe that if you give your money
to God, God will bless you with more money, and
(29:14):
a full sixty one percent 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.
And why here's where it gets crazy. There are a
(29:39):
lot of critics. Yeah, they don't believe the official stance
of the proponents. Instead of seeing them as motivated or
motivational religious figures, those skeptical prosperity theologies see these people
as essentially con artists. Conwells, Conway Twitties. Did you know,
(30:01):
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
(30:22):
call it Twitty City. I thought that, 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 a must be some kind of backroom deal going
on between Twitty and Yeah. It was a different, different
world back then. I got a camel license there. Wow,
(30:44):
for some reason, they had a thing where you could
ride camels like a breeding license test. No, I just
say I got a license to operate a camel. Also,
maybe they have the Renaissance Fair here. You don't have
to have a license though, that's pretty intense. No, I
would they gave it to I was a kid. Yeah,
and they're like, oh, here you go. Oh it was
just a cute thing. Yeah, I don't think it was.
I don't think it would be a situation where we
(31:06):
will be later on an airplane or a boat and
someone goes, oh, no, is there a camel operator in
the house. You'd have that covered. Before we get too
deep into this, I just want to point out that
there are degrees of this stuff too, and we're going
to talk about some of the extreme ones upfront, and
(31:27):
then you know, as it a lot of this stuff
filters into more mainstream, kind of sure 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
a personal choice. But we're going to start with some
(31:49):
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 always say, we're not going
to tell you what to believe or interfere with your
own spiritual practices. It's a very personal, in private matter.
And we did say, I think we said earlier in
the show too, that these movements are not created equally,
(32:12):
and in some cases, what was the language I used,
they might not even be remotely related. They believe in
health and wealth, but a very different ideas about how
to get there. 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 not a
part of mainstream evangelicalism. In fact, evangelicals have condemned for
(32:38):
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, probably
one of the most successful religious figures of his sort currently,
(32:58):
and it 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,
of course, not to be the case. You know, I
don't pretend to know the exact particulars of what went
(33:19):
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
thousand retweets and oh, man, Joel Austin's got to go
on the news. The Internet has always been a fickle
mistress with capricious favorites, right, So yeah, There's a guy
(33:41):
named Gordon Fee, a prominent Pentecostal scholar who wrote a
book called The Disease of Health and Wealth Gospels. There's
a Calvinist pastor named John Piper who said the prosperity
Gospel will not make anyone praise Jesus. It will make
people praise prosperity. It's like an idol you're creating. Yeah,
and there's a Utah pastor named Rick Henderson who said
(34:02):
Joel Austin frequently misunderstands important matters of faith and doctrine,
and that last criticism seems to be based more on
the the nuts and bolts of knowing the Bible. Right.
I do. Also, while we were mentioning books, want to
highlight Blest a History of the American Prosperity Gospel by
(34:25):
Kate Bohler. Thanks Kate Boler. Yeah, it's it's monograph and
it's probably the best work of its kind out currently
if you'd like to read more. Secular forces also criticize
prosperity theology and accuse it of exploiting the poor. This
accusation is a response to prosperity theology is heavy, and
(34:46):
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. We want to go
if we want to be brass tacks about it a
little more specific then that would mean ten percent of
(35:09):
your gross income. Yeah, your net income, ten percent of
your pre tax So Uncle Sam comes second, Uncle Sam
comes second, Sally May comes third. Credit card debt, alimony payments, mortgages,
medical debt, which is one of the primary causes of
(35:31):
financial personal disaster in this country. So this money, this
tithing is seen as an investment. By showing faith, parishioners
could have a hundredfold 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
(35:53):
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. 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
(36:16):
people that might be watching a program at a certain
time on television, the elderly a lot of times, but
there may also be cases where human psychology is a
tricky thing. There may also be cases where people believe
this has worked for them. Yeah, people think, well, I
gave my last five dollars as seed prayer money, and
(36:38):
immediately afterwards I got that job or that inheritance, or
I've found the straps on my boots. Yeah, and it
turns out they work, you know, And 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
(36:58):
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 church members versus you know, more
lower class, middle to lower class members and how those
smaller donations add up and if they equal, if not exceed,
(37:23):
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 it's like you got to
spend money to make money, right, Yeah, 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,
(37:46):
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 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.
Fact of faith. I was Methodist, oh okay too, and
(38:09):
then became nondenominational, but it never changed. It never changed.
There was always this big push to make sure you
were giving X amount of your money to 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,
(38:30):
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 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.
(38:51):
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 think they were pushing that line every day. 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. Yes, you know, help
us out. Yeah, I always feel sorry for the folks
(39:14):
on the NPR Pledge Drives. Toward the end, you could
tell they're really feeling it because people who don't write
into them all year right into them during the Pledge Drive, going,
I can't believe you're doing the Pledge Drive. This is
not what I had my radio on for. 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
(39:35):
and thank you. Yeah, it 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
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 show's hostage. Yeah, sou So we
(39:59):
do see this occurring. And that's not the only criticism.
There's also a related criticism concerning tax exemptions. 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. Wow. Yeah.
(40:21):
One of my favorite criticisms of this was a couple
of years back in twenty fifteen, John Oliver on his
fantastic show Last Week Tonight formed the Church of Our
Lady a perpetual exemption, which was entirely stated only to
be a church to avoid paying taxes. Yeah, and it
actually made a ton of money. They were sent all
(40:44):
kinds of donations, including some including jars of semen. You
could just say, yeah, there was the sex sexual seeds
and then sex toys, jars of semen and cash. Yeah,
and heavily featured in that segment that you're talking about
was one of your favorite prosperity theologian lists. Yes, that
is correct, Kreflo Dollar here in Atlanta, Kreflo Dollar, prosperity
(41:10):
theologian who maintains that Kreflo Dollar is his real and
God given name. Absolutely. I just want you to know that,
he says that is his real name. Yeah, 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
(41:31):
who made the national headlines in the States when he
had a fundraising drive to buy a new private plane
for the purposes of spreading the gospel. Yeah, there was
a previously owned private plane. Their side of the story
is that it was unsafe and out of shape. So
(41:54):
they're going to buy a new one, right, And he
did something really 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 one hundred
(42:15):
and fifty two hundred and fifty dollars, you know. And
then interesting, and then people who are opponents are therefore
telling this guy and his prishioners that they cannot believe
in God. They're telling me that I can't believe in God.
For a house, for car, for a new job. Well,
I'm going to believe even more. Now it's time for
(42:36):
double x amount of people to give ten thousand dollars,
right 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. Critics also believe that preachers and prosperity
theology movement are misusing church funds, squirreling donations way in
(42:58):
personal bank accounts, spending money for the church, u lavish
personal items, you know, rolls Royce's high end cars, luxury
living situations, and 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
(43:19):
his followers are pained for it. Don't take my word
for it. Let's listen to a little sample of Creflo
dollar in action. Oh Robert's thirteen, verse twenty one, evil
pursueth sinners, but to the righteous good shall be repaid.
(43:40):
I'm telling you this year has been crowned with goodness,
and God Almighty has ordained and pre arranged for you
and I to live the good life. So I want
you to get ready. If you're not living a good life,
get ready, God says here he getting ready to repay
the righteous with some good it. And mister Dollar is
(44:04):
not the only one. Let's go back to just one
of my 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
(44:25):
I was born, but he grew his ministry into one
of the largest in the country by the nineties. And
guess what, he's got a website and still going strong today.
He has like a 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
(44:47):
had to do was have faith and donate. He would
also speak in tongues quite regularly, and he would call
out somebody like he would This was like on regular
TVs on television between stuff in the morning. Yeah, in
commercial time before the first commercial has come on at
like five or six or something like that. Am. Yeah,
(45:09):
where are you up at five am? My mom was
a teacher, so I was at I was 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'd 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 it up now, is
that all your money problems originate with your sins, the
(45:32):
things that you're doing. But if you 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
(45:53):
send you items that you're 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 you interact with it. Then you send it back,
but you send it back with your faith, your donation, right,
(46:16):
and then you keep that going with people who watch
your show, and it's it's pretty crazy. There 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, a well, yeah, you
(46:36):
can make it into a turkey. But then you send
it back with your donation. And then Robert Tilton's gonna
put his hand where you put your hand, and you're
gonna think he had like somebody to do it for him. Well,
sign autographs. 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
(46:58):
or that way. 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 faith, right, I mean, it was fascinating to me.
And ABC News did an investigation in nineteen ninety one, well, uh,
specifically looking at the direct mailing service, and they found
(47:21):
that that alone brought in his ministry in nineteen ninety
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 bank, because there were
numerous banks that were used. And this is all, by
(47:42):
the way, I 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 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 donation and the little objects,
the special water that they would send you, it was
(48:05):
just thrown away. What the donations were taken. The water
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 that you would interact with and send back,
but 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 that existed. I didn't. I didn't
(48:26):
find much of that. We'll circle back. There's more to it, though,
we only have to go into If you're interested in
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 phenomenon was beginning, you may remember something called Farting Preacher,
(48:50):
and this is the person who's featured in those videos.
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
can attest personally as a thirty four year old man,
having never seen this before in my life. When you
(49:11):
showed it to me earlier this morning, I was in stitches.
It's amazing. It's amazing, but you know, buy or beware.
It could potentially ruffle your Vetash did did we mention
the scripts that the phone operators were using. Oh yeah,
that was also in the dumpsters, and in particular with
(49:32):
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
the volume was of such a level that you couldn't
stay on the line that longer. And they wouldn't accept
anything any donation below one hundred dollars. So if you
(49:52):
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 got one hundred dollars,
you know, you might get on the good graces. So this, uh,
you can clearly see in this situation there was stuff
that Tilton didn't want you to know, which is that
(50:13):
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
(50:33):
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 guy had so many mansions in boats and cars
and uh, it's just really disturbing him. It makes me angry.
(50:54):
So he's not the only one though, he's 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.
(51:15):
I guess it's kind of a video networking. They have
a YouTube channel as well, and 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.
You remember, you might remember Tammy Faye Baker and Jim Baker.
(51:36):
They got into some legal issues. He ended up having
to go to jail for a while. 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 times. 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
(51:58):
don't occupy, the enemy 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 that's
a pretty good sample. And people can find it on YouTube. Well, yeah,
it's a food though, right, yes, and you if you
(52:21):
go on the website, they 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 fifteen hundred dollars. But my favorite and kind of
(52:43):
to see how this whole thing functions, 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, one hundred and
ninety dollars, but you're paying quite a bit more for that,
So essentially you're donating to the ministry sure, and getting
(53:05):
something that you will probably use or at least it
might use. Is that wrong then if they have the
actual value of the stuff I was addressed, Yeah, exactly.
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
(53:26):
is on its way and somehow you're going to be
able to be a prepperer 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
(53:47):
look at these, they look like a you know, Billy
May's infomercial where they're totally like selling you a product
like it is very much not framed as tie thing
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.
(54:08):
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 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
(54:29):
they don't want you to know, but not all of them.
We have more examples that will return to after a
quick word from our sponsors. We have returned Noel. There
was one particular example that you were talking about off
(54:50):
air before we before stepped into the booth, the room,
so the compound, and yes, this all originated after I
showed Noel the far preacher clip. He showed me a
clip of Justin Bieber hanging out at Hillsong. Is that
what it was called? Yeah, Hillsong in La. It is
a megachurch that was founded in Sydney, New South Wales,
(55:15):
Australia in nineteen eighty three by Brian and Bobby Houston,
and it has since expanded across five countries in Europe,
Asia and the Americas. And then it broadcasts online to
over one hundred and sixty nations, has more than one
hundred thousand worldwide attendees, and there are eighty affiliated churches,
(55:37):
and so it's it's you know, when you think of megachurches,
you think about this like rock concert kind of atmosphere
where rather than like 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
(56:01):
lights and you know, LEDs and even pyrotechnics and all
kinds of bells and whistles. And this is one of
the most successful kind of brands, this Hillsong thing, largely
because of its association with many celebrities now, especially like
the Biber thing. And there's another super deluxe video with
(56:21):
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, which is great. I recommend just type
in Biber Hillsong. We're not going to 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
(56:46):
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 quality and this sense that you know
of success that goes along with it with these celebrity
of philations. And they push very hard for tithing. They
are Pentecostal, and they are again that very strict interpretation
(57:08):
of the Bible which encourages tithing, and they equate that
to give ten percent of your income grossing. Yes, of course,
yes to the church. And you know, you look at
their site, 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
(57:31):
label basically where they put out and make large sums
of money. I would imagine on these Christian rock type bands. Dude,
I used to listen to this stuff. Yeah, and I
lift your name on Hi to seeing here drums for that.
I don't think, I mean, I don't think that's inherently wrong. Absolutely.
(57:55):
I'm just because I was exposed to that. We've I
came from that youth group culture as well, and these
saws are forever embedded in my brain and I resent
that a little bit before we get into the bed
whatever you're about to hit and all. 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
(58:17):
that huge, right, And you could say the same thing
about any large church or the Vatican. Remember when we
talk about the Vatican Bank and that just the money
that gets poured into there. 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
(58:40):
they're not paying any tax on it, you know, and
they own massive amounts of real estate like in Australia alone.
I mean, the value of the property that Hillsong owns
is unprecedented. And they even I think we're trying to
enter into an agreement with the Government of Sydney to
develop a huge area of the city and it ultimately
(59:04):
that didn't happen because like an independent council recommended against it.
But we're talking big, big spending power here and the
ability to really shape the politics of a particular area
where they hold sway. Oh sure, even beyond it, Yeah, absolutely.
And I don't want to get too even to this
because I don't think it's entirely relevant what we're talking about.
But I think it's interesting. The father of the founder
(59:27):
of Hillsong ran into some legal trouble involving an accusation
of a molestation of one of the child in his
congregation when he was a Pentecostal pastor. And I 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
(59:48):
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 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
(01:00:09):
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 certain almost superhuman notions, you know,
traits to the folks that are like in controlling these
kinds of huge organizations. Absolutely, and that's not just native
(01:00:32):
to prosperity theology, but to like bring it back there,
I would argue then many times that problem is compounded
in prosperity theology. One thing we would be remiss about
that we've talked about. 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
(01:00:52):
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 of freedom of religion. Yeah,
so what happens if there's you know, if there's a
group of people who have their own private faith and
(01:01:13):
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 ideally having that
separation would keep the It's like the old Arabic proverb
(01:01:35):
of like if the camel has his nose in the tents.
Soon the camel will be in the tent. You know,
a slippery slope argument all about camels today. Yeah, I
didn't mean to bring it back, but it is a
real proverb. And then you obviously you have people that establish,
you know, ministries with nothing but good intention. And there's
a lot of charity that that comes from ministries, and
(01:01:57):
you know, philanthropy and helping people in knee 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, you know, core,
be good, don't be a villainy. But I think that
there are examples of folks like we're talking about here
(01:02:18):
that maybe look at that tax exemption status as like
a way to create an international money machine. So absolutely
absolutely read about the rationalizations for buying a private jet
in a world where one billion people die due to
lack of toilets. Yeah, you know what I mean, Like
in terms of priorities not having been sent as some
(01:02:41):
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.
There is another double standard here, which is that sure
tax ex does exist for very good reason. However, Asnel
(01:03:04):
said earlier, it's completely clear that large groups of motivated
people in many religious organizations are being told how to
vote yes, perhaps without knowing an issue, perhaps without even
reaching their own conclusion through a spiritual, self guided journey.
They're being told that some greater reward, greater spiritual reward.
(01:03:32):
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 a country. 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
(01:03:52):
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 other can
of worms that we're not even going to 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,
(01:04:13):
Church and state interactions occur in many, many countries. The
roles of churches when there's mass civil unrest. Sure, yeah,
separation we're always talking about is a bit of window dressing,
if you ask me. Often, yeah, often. And here, however,
we draw to a close with our examination of the
(01:04:34):
ins and outs of prosperity theology despite their critics. And
there are many the proponents of prosperity theology, and there
are many seem set to continuing this work well into
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
(01:04:58):
decline or wax and wane over the decade. I think
somebody gets some figure gets a little too big in
the or too well known, then gets 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.
(01:05:20):
And now what we're left with is a 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 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
(01:05:42):
from multiple journalists over multiple decades, that appears often to
be the stuff they don't want you to know. All
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've you know, we've
given you our thoughts. What do you think? Is this
(01:06:06):
something that's positive in your neck of the woods. Is
it something you've been a 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. Maybe you're
Joel Austin's personal page. Oh write to us. We're on
(01:06:28):
Twitter and we're on Facebook. You can find us. We're
conspiracy stuff on both of those. We are conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram. And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
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