Laugh at Joel Osteen If You Want--He is Winning


Joel Osteen, super wealthy mega church preacher, tells audiences, "Jesus wants you to prosper." That summarizes what is called in Christianity the Prosperity Gospel. It is optimistic, empowering and uplifting. Contrast that with what I understand to be the traditional gospel narrative, "You were born a sinner. Sinners go to hell when they die. There is but one hope for you. We have arbitrarily picked one of the many gods worshipped by humans over 200,000 years. The one we happened to have chosen will forgive your sins, but first you have to promise you are on his team and grovel."

The prosperity gospel message is simple and upbeat. The traditional gospel is complicated and a downer. It's not rocket science to understand why the prosperity growing in popularity and the traditional declining.   

If we look at church attendance from the view of the academic discipline of economics, it is an investment of time each week. The value one receives, or perceives, from going to church is compared by each person, or couple, to the value received from doing something else with this time. If the perceived value from spending time in church is higher than alternatives it wins. Otherwise, no church. 

Church attendance is growing among college educated married couples aged 30 to 50. This is the group we would expect to be "on their way up." Networking at church is good for them. They expect to make more money in the future and its easy for them to believe this is what Jesus wants for them. If their current preacher keeps returning to the traditional gospel, you were born a sinner, grovel and you might have a chance, conversation at home might be, "Maybe we should shop around for another church. We're not getting much help here."

The prosperity gospel seems like it has a better product to sell. If listeners are told, "Here is Bill. He came into the faith and got rich," one can point to something that actually happened. The traditional narrative says, "Remember Bob. He was a sinner. He came into the faith then died. He might be in heaven." The latter seems a weaker case.

There are always people being conned out of their money by religions. It would be best if this were not the case at all. The Prosperity Gospel in not more honorable, it just sounds like a better product.

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