This just in: Up is down, black is white

And Jesus was rich--and can help you get rich, too.

Fortunately for my well-being, when I heard those sentiments expressed on NPR's "Morning Edition" this morning, I was neither shaving, brushing my teeth, nor gulping down breakfast. If I had been doing any one or more of those things, it could potentially have been ugly. As it was, I did a spit take.

Apparently there is a group of people out there, some of whose more flamboyant representatives are due to head to Washington this week for a little chat with some congressional committees looking into the question of whether or not they're abusing their status as charitable organizations, preaching what I'll call for lack of a better expression, the Gospel according to St. Mammon. (I'll probably have to do another fifty years in Purgatory for that one.) The one NPR quoted was Creflo Dollar--a name hitherto familiar to me only in that I'd seen it come up a few times on television listings and wondered if it could possibly be real. Apparently it is not only real, but entirely apt, given that Mr. Dollar (I refuse to call such a man "reverend") preaches to his flock that God can get them out of debt, make them wealthy, and give them everything they want.

God as ATM. Funny, but that wasn't one of the divine attributes we discussed when I was taking instruction in Catholicism. Didn't show up in any of my religion or philosophy of religion classes either. And despite being thoroughly familiar with the canonical Gospels both in translation and in the original Greek, I don't recall running across that description in there, either. As for Mr. Dollar's assertion that Jesus wasn't poor, can only hope that it's because he's been so busy ministering to fleecing his flock that he overlooked all those times Jesus talked about having nowhere to lay his head--or especially all those times Jesus told other people to sell everything they had and give the proceeds to the poor.

Of course, the idea that God will give you whatever you want in as great a quantity as you want (presumably you have to do something in return, though that wasn't specified in the NPR report this morning) is bound to be comforting to people, especially in these days of stagnant wages, a shrinking economy, spiralling energy and food costs, and a falling dollar (the currency, not the huckster in clergyman's clothing). Nevertheless, I'm astounded that anyone who is at all familiar with the Bible or with even a fraction of the two thousand years of traditional Christology could fall for such an obvious bucket of pigswill. Maybe P.T. Barnum was right and there really is a sucker born every minute.

The morning only got worse from there. As I was getting dressed, NPR shifted to a report from the ground in Iowa. They had reporters talking to small groups of Democratic and Republican voters who were planning to attend the Iowa caucuses next month to start the process of selecting both parties' presidential nominees. One of the Republicans, whose name I didn't catch, actually said out loud what most of us on this side of the political spectrum have long assumed they were thinking. To wit, she was self-employed, making a lot of money for herself, and she didn't feel she should have to pay for anybody else's kids to go to school anymore.

I really shouldn't be surprised by that, but if I'd been wearing socks at the time I heard it, it would have knocked them off me. Have we really come so far in my lifetime that we no longer care about educating the next generation of Americans--you know, the ones who will be running things (and taking care of us) when we're no longer able to do it ourselves? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

For that matter, just how, I wonder, does this woman explain her own success? Yeah, yeah, she pulled herself up by her own bootstraps, naturally. And everyone else should do the same. But unless she sprang fully formed from the head of her father by parthogenesis, she's a smarmy hypocrite. Had her grandparents' generation felt the way she did, it's most unlikely that she'd be in anything like the same situation she enjoys now--and which she seems to want to make sure that as few people as possible get to enjoy along with her.

In the introduction to his book The Anatomy of Sex and Power, Michael Hutchinson wrote:

The boom on Wall Street seemed to symbolize a mania that had swept society. The naked lust for money, once considered as unseemly as public sex, was now being accepted as a virtue.

--Michael Hutchinson, The Anatomy of Sex and Power: An Investigation of Mind-Body Politics (New York: William Morrow, 1990), 18

That mania has now escaped Wall Street and moved into suburbia, it would appear. And into our churches. And somewhere, I'd venture to guess, Jesus is not pleased.

Comments

[Bryan]

Fallenmonk can tell you about Mr. Dollar and his con, and he is based in Atlanta. It's pretty straight forward - pay me, buy all this stuff, and you will be rewarded ten-fold.

I'm not paying for other people's children to be educated, I'm paying for my education. School taxes are just another student loan. It was only the first taxpayers who paid for other people's children, the rest of us are just repaying the loan. The same principle works for utilities and infrastructure. I'm paying for what I use, not for what someone else will use in the future.

Unless you were an adult immigrant, you have been using these conveniences all your life, and now you are being billed.

[Andrea]

You know... I thought of you when I heard both of those stories ;) Jesus wasn't poor, indeed! For heaven's sake. I almost choked.

And I hear the "I don't want to pay to educate other people's children" argument frequently. Usually from older people who've already put their own children through school. My comment is usually something along the lines of "Do you benefit from an educated population? Then stop complaining." And if you think you DON'T benefit from an educated population, don't gripe when the clerk at the grocery store can't make change.