Sinking Ships

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In anticipation of the Academy Awards, last night I revisited Titanic. Since I tend to view art from the perspective of metaphor, I was once again struck by how our society resembles that great ship. In particular, with the current turmoil between plutocratic governors and the average citizens who’ve elected them, the brazen upper-class passengers on the Titanic embody the interests of the self-interested. When Captain Smith leads the privileged first class travelers in “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” in their own private chapel unsullied by the second and third class detritus, the line “for those in peril on the sea” resonates with the Prosperity Gospel. The well-to-do are that way through no fault of their own; God loves them more and made them better off than the rest. And when icebergs float, those unloved by their creator sink.

Over the past few weeks, in the shadow of events unfolding in Egypt and even Libya, we have seen the assertions of the aristocratic governor class assailing the workers. Attempting to make unions illegal, reducing the services offered to the poor, attempting to shorten the lives of the elderly by withdrawing medical programs (let us not ask how much profit pharmaceutical companies make for they are dearly loved by their father who art in Fort Knox), they know the rush of divine power. Indeed, populations are so complacent that as long as we have our MTV (substitute here your favorite media narcotic), that we shrug our collective shoulders and say “whatever.”

Perhaps it is not the metaphor James Cameron intended, but it is the working class Jack who sinks to an icy grave while the privileged but bankrupt Rose remains afloat. Our sympathies are with the young lady abused by privileged society, but the lifeboats should best remain half empty to preserve the upper crust rather than risk all going down together. After all, the Bible informs us that bread cast upon the waters comes back. And those who take up more than their fair share of the lifeboats wager that when that bread comes back it will be docile and subdued after its ordeals in the North Atlantic, and the Carpathia will come and restore society to its proper order. And so perhaps it is only a metaphor that more than a decade later the shoo-in for the Academy Awards is a film about the royal family. I think I see an iceberg ahead.

This is only a metaphor

Hallowed Be Thy Game

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I don’t follow sports. At all. This may seem an unmanly confession, but I think of it as more a silent protest against a society that pays excessive bonuses to people who play for a living. It’s not that I have anything against physical fitness – I still jog regularly and have been known to rattle the free-weights around a time or two – it’s simply the recognition that the more difficult achievements, intellectual achievements, are undervalued. Not that I make any claims of being an intellectual – I have no time for those who tout Ph.D.s like intellectual currency – but I see things from a different angle. Usually when I reach the sports section, I simply flip over the whole wad of pages to get onto what’s next. Today, however, a front-page sporty headline caught my attention, “‘God Can Turn Mistakes Into Miracles’ is the message Michael Vick sent out…” I confess, I don’t know who Michael Vick is. But he knows what God can do in some sports venue.

I grew up with God. The information I was given was that those who devote the majority of their time and attention to God will receive their reward. Not always in money, despite what the Prosperity Gospelers bray, but at least in kind. Being the kind of person who likes to follow things through to their logical conclusions, I ended up with an appropriately named “terminal degree” in religious studies. The prosperity came in the satisfaction that I could teach others for a reasonable, if low-end, salary and continue my goal of deeper understanding. Then Prosperity Gospelers took over the seminary and those of us without material cache were kindly kicked out. I was jogging between seven and nine miles a day, looking for answers.

The headlines this year have included tragic college sports-related injuries, one of the more dramatic from my own part-time home of Rutgers. Immediately medics rush to the field and prompt, professional medical care is given. I am covered by no medical plan. Many athletes take my classes, and they can count on the good graces of God and university officials to take care of them. In my opinion they are just as capable of learning as any other students, but the incentives just aren’t there. Why earn a degree in a field that will plant you on your backside all day for minimum returns when you can perform miracles in the athletic world for more money than the average citizen can even imagine? If God can turn mistakes into miracles, perhaps this misspent life of religious studies can turn into a lucrative position after all.

Miracle or mistake?

Voices from the Third Estate

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Discussions over the past week in that great wasteland we call state government have included talk of actually having millionaires taxed to shoulder a little of the state’s fiscal burden. Naturally there has been a strong backlash in this nation of deeply embedded plutocracy. Those who have their millions certainly feel little social responsibility, since the prosperity Gospel (or its analogs) comforts them with whispers that wealth is a sign of blessing. One of the most evil ironies of all is that many such folk have the chutzpah to cite the Bible as their backer. God loves the beautiful people.

Such virulent misreading of religion shrugs off millions of gallons of crude oil gushing into the Gulf. Petroleum companies breed some of the wealthiest individuals around, and if we wipe out the marine life of the southern coast, well, that’s a small price to pay for individual privilege. Somewhere along the line an unholy matrimony between religion and greed produced the great plague that will lead to the fall of western civilization. This may be seen clearly among the apes.

Frans de Waal, an author whom I’ve quoted before, notes that in ape society when an individual (or individuals) takes advantage of the system, the group eventually brings an end to his (or rarely her) reign. Primate society can only tolerate abuses that damage a community for so long before a collapse is immanent. Consider Rome, “the eternal empire.” Every day politicians posture in the media about how they have the best interests of society at heart. As members of the privileged classes, they have lost sight of what it feels like to live in the constant umbra of the supercilious wealthy while millions have no jobs, no health care, no future. Millionaires owe nothing to the society that allowed them to become rich, for the Bible tells them so. Nature, however, begs to differ.

The Cross in my Pocket

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A local woman, whom I can only assume carries a prosperity cross, has won a 211 million dollar New Jersey lottery jackpot. As I had written some months back, when I received my prosperity cross, I tried my hand at the lottery with no rewards. Having had a dream of riches a few weeks back, I again attempted the lotto, with the added ethical motivation of assisting our state’s beleaguered educational system. Still no prosperity. It seems that the divine attention was focused a few miles north and a few days late. The happy winner has gone on record (in the New Jersey Star-Ledger) as saying, “I give God all the glory for this blessing that he has given me… He has seen and knows the highs and lows of my life, and knows the good I have done, and the good I can accomplish in his name.”

This innocent statement, no doubt whipped to a froth by prosperity gospelers, reveals all the difficulty of the weekend warrior prayers for good weather. Tweaking the world in one corner, as chaos theory demonstrates, leads to disaster in another. Not that our thankful lottery winner will unleash untold evil on the world, but it is time that people of all religions stop to consider the implications of the divine bursting in upon the mundane. In my experience, when such people are asked why God chose them and not someone else, they wax mysterious and intimate that only God knows. It is part of a great cosmic secret, only cryptically hinted at in the Holy Bible.

Call it sour grapes, or the grapes of wrath, or any other viticultural metaphor, but God does not direct the lottery. Too many truly good people suffer far too much for such easy answers. Those who promote the prosperity gospel are not among the paragons of human achievement or selfless nobility. Rather they are the idols of the self-important and acquisitive entrepreneurs. I wish our New Jersey lotto winner well – I hope she will steer clear of the prosperity gospel and actually put her money to good use.

Heavenly Visitors

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With Passover hard upon us, I was a little disturbed to receive a letter on Friday that read, “A heavenly visitor will pass your house…” Having been raised on the sturdy fare of Exodus, I knew that heavenly visitors more often take the form of marauding angels than of jocular Santa Clauses. It seemed an ominous warning. Of course, it came from the Saint Matthew’s Churches that sent me such good wishes of divine promises of prosperity some months back, so I had to assume it was a purely coincidental biblical reference. The folks at Saint Matthew’s Churches are, after all, Bible believers.

Perhaps because of that fateful letter, I dreamed, in good Genesis style, a dream two nights ago. I dreamed that I found a dollar coin on the ground at a family outing. A few feet away lay another. And another. Wherever we went in that Morpheus-bewitched town there were silver dollars unclaimed on the ground. My trousers were being dragged down with the weight of the lucre in my pockets. I couldn’t believe my good fortune! Then I awoke, still employed only part-time, still worrying every minute about whether we can meet all the bills. Perhaps the dream was a message? Should the Saint Matthew’s’ folks be right, prosperity was headed my way. Saturday’s powerball jackpot was in the double-digit millions. I very rarely play the lottery, but since state education in New Jersey needs all the help it can get, I offered up a dollar to see if Saint Matthew’s’ prosperity was at hand.

No. Not even one number came close. Perhaps there is a secret clause in the prosperity gospel contract. Perhaps those who prosper must hold certain conservative views on social issues. The views, say, my mother holds. Yet she lives in a trailer on a severely circumscribed income. That doesn’t seem to be it either. Last night I awaited another dream. Instead, the next-door neighbors were holding a loud party until 3 a.m. Perhaps celebrating Palm Sunday? Or perhaps that was the heavenly visitor passing over for Passover a couple of days early? Either way, I didn’t sleep well last night knowing that something was just outside my window.

Lying Literalists

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“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I do not delight in your solemn assemblies!” The words of some godless communist? A disaffected liberal? An angry atheist? No. These stark words come from Amos, the prophet. Each year when I teach my course on the Hebrew Prophets I am struck by how strident their words are. For Fundamentalists and others who take the Bible literally the words belong to none other than the Big Guy. The Primal Y. G-d. God hates the worship conducted in a land where injustice reigns.

Although the basic principles sound correct, it is clear that America cannot really be considered a just society. There are a few too many families without enough to eat, a few too many homeless on the street-corners of our cities, a few too many unemployed. And a few too few filthy rich. There is plenty to go around, and one might naively think prosperity might trickle down. It doesn’t. I’ve always been amazed to see the girth of many prosperity gospelers who inveigh against the unrighteous. A sturdy measuring tape might tell us all we really need to know about righteousness.

Bible believers do not believe in the Bible. They accept the message they wish to hear, that God loves those who are rewarded with wealth, but the message of Amos they have little time for. They miss the part where the prophet calls them cows of Bashan that are fat for sacrifice. Yet when they flip out their iconic Bibles the theologically illiterate follow them to the polls. The more they pound their Bibles the more they are beating innocent victims. Be careful before becoming a Bible believer – it is not always a comfortable place to be!

When Your World Rocks

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The prophet Amos famously dates his oracles as “two years before the earthquake.” In ancient times (and some modern, dimly lit regions of some religious minds) earthquakes were thought to be signs of divine displeasure. We lost that naïve, magical view with the discovery of tectonic plates and fault zones, but it is hard not to take earthquakes personally. A third major earthquake of the year hit Turkey on Sunday, leaving further human distress in its wake. While scientists assure us that earthquakes are not increasing in frequency, we nevertheless hear more and more about them.

Although we have the technology to build earthquake-proof buildings, the nations suffering from the recent quakes do not have the luxury of ensuring that those who live around fault zones all have housing to withstand that unsuspected temblor. Those who cannot afford high cost housing are fated to be victims. We don’t cause the earthquakes, but we can ensure that affluent cities will withstand them. Haiti, Chile, and Turkey seem a long way distant.

Whose fault is it anyway?

Scanning the unfair distribution of wealth across the world, it is far easier to see an angry god behind an earthquake than it is to relinquish our personal gain. Perhaps it is a result of our biological urge to survive that we constantly seek to increase our own advantage while shaking our heads sadly as people we don’t know become the victims. Meanwhile neo-cons and prosperity gospelers bray loudly that wealth is their god’s reward for lives of righteousness in this wicked world. It is a scenario worthy of Amos himself.

Prosperity Update

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I didn’t have the opportunity to write a post yesterday because my PowerPoint file for my class had been deleted. I still don’t know how. I’ve been using varieties of the same computer I have now for about 20 years and I’ve never lost a file before. I discovered this, of course, just before I began packing the car with the sherpa-load of equipment that I need to haul the 50 miles to Montclair with me to teach my class twice a week. The loss of the day’s lecture notes weighed heavily on my mind as I climbed into my car and discovered a problem with the electrical system – the blinker lights on the right wouldn’t shut off. (They finally started to behave normally half-way to the university.) And a blizzard was on the way. At times like this my thoughts turn to my prosperity cross.

I wrote about the cross in a previous post where I indicated that I was going to try a good-faith experiment to see if God really wants me to prosper. The last 17 years haven’t been good financially, so I tried my best to believe, and I have been carrying the cross around with me for a few weeks now. In that time I have had a publication rejected, did not get a full-time job after a very good interview, didn’t win the lottery (I bought a ticket as an experiment although I never play normally), my wife had more hours added to her job with no increase in compensation, my health insurance company politely declined to pay for an expensive dental procedure, and I have yet to be paid for my four weeks of teaching at Montclair. Oh, and two cars very nearly collided with me yesterday (not because of my blinker! One tried to pass me on the left as I was making a left turn into a parking spot in a parking lot, the other passed me on a single-lane entry ramp onto the Garden State Parkway while I was merging at the posted speed limit). I’m beginning to think they sent me a defective artifact.

In my prophecy class we’ve been discussing divination. From ancient times people have attempted to discern the will of the gods through a wide variety of techniques. Watching birds in the sky, smoke from altars, oil on water (haven’t discovered smoke on the water yet), casting lots, reading animal livers, and having significant dreams – any of these might reveal the hidden will of the gods. And ancients carried talismans at times to hedge the odds in their favor. We like to think of ourselves as more sophisticated than that, relying on more updated and civilized ways of influencing the almighty. My pocket cross is one of those modern means to induce divine favor my way. Perhaps I am reporting too soon, since I’ve got a backlog of nearly two decades of financial woes to overcome. In the short term, however, it looks like a real blizzard is on the way.

Secrets of my sucess

Prosperity Fail

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Every so often I receive unsolicited mailings from impersonal churches intimately addressed to “Resident.” Invariably these churches tell me that God wants me to prosper (although he has a funny way of showing it sometimes), offer to send me some totem to make it possible, and assure me of their general goodwill. Yesterday’s mail brought me a packet from Saint Matthew’s Churches offering to help me become wealthy by receiving a free golden cross just for responding — post paid! — to their offer. Clearly such mailings are intended to target readers down on their luck. Since I’ve been without a full-time job since July, I meet their demographic rather well. My response, however, may not be what they hoped for: I plan to send no money.

I wonder how deeply these prosperity clergy consider the impact of an unemployed individual receiving their vain promises. Sometimes when the under-employed receive such hollow promises it feels like a god-slap. Oh! If only I had been wearing this free cross I wouldn’t have had to suffer such bouts of depression and self-doubt! It was just that simple! And the Holy Bible says so too!

Those of us who’ve tried to make a living of studying the Bible don’t just read the cheery bits. The Bible is full of suffering, despair, and difficulty endured by those who tried to do the right thing. So, in fairness to the spirit of empirical inquiry, I’ve decided to respond to this offer. The control will be the last seventeen years of my professional life, during which prosperity has eluded me. It may take another seventeen years, but if I carry my free cross around, things are sure to turn my way. The accompanying literature says so. I’ll set myself a task in Outlook for 2026 to see if, A. the world hasn’t ended in 2012, and B. the magic golden cross really works.

False Profits

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December’s edition of the Atlantic Monthly features a disturbing article by Hanna Rosin entitled “Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” What is disturbing about this article is not the insinuation that many conservative Christian groups have caused far more problems than they’ve solved (“guilty as charged”), but the utter duplicity of the movement. The deception begins with the claim of the Prosperity Gospel pundits that they are holding true to biblical principles. In reality they rewrite the Bible to make it fit their vision of personal gain at the expense of the weak and needy. You can hear the sounds of Amos and Micah being ground beneath their wingtip heels.

The Prosperity Gospel is a particularly virulent disease in the United States, a nation of incomprehensible contrasts. The clergy of the Prosperity Gospel (churches of this stripe are among the largest and fastest growing in America) demand tithes on the part of their sometimes poor but always hopeful congregants. Most of them are being set up for failure. But it will be failure with a smile. As I read Rosin’s article, I was saddened that a growing number of those buying into this “Gospel” are those among the exploited Hispanic community. The message they are being given is the worst kind of blasphemy. One such believer, according to Rosin, claimed “the rich are closer to God.” A message farther from the actual Gospels would be difficult to concoct.

Prosperity Gospelers, decidedly not mainstream Christianity in theological outlook, judge a book by its glitzy cover. Its leaders, often fabulously wealthy, hold out unrealistic hope to their gullible and disappointed followers. It is so easy when a congregant looses everything simply to blame it on a lack of faith. This bogus idea of material payoff for spiritual righteousness is not only dangerous, but it is redefining the religious scene in North America. The article follows the story of Fernando Garay, the leader of Casa del Padre, a Prosperity Gospel church. When asked by Rosin about buying a house (a sign of God’s blessing) he tellingly replied, “Ten Christians will say that God told them to buy a house. In nine of the cases, it will go bad. The 10th one is the real Christian.” Americans have a fondness for snake-oil and entrepreneurs. Now the hucksters are the ones claiming the right to define what Christianity really is. It is a religion that even Jesus would fail to recognize.