{"id":181,"date":"2008-10-04T22:48:55","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T22:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html"},"modified":"2008-10-04T22:48:55","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T22:48:55","slug":"casualities-of-the-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html","title":{"rendered":"Main Street Casualities of the Prosperity Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"


David Van Biema reports in Time<\/a> on the so called Prosperity Gospel: the congregants who believed, the lenders who were eager to take advantage of them, and the disaster this dangerous heresy has wrought.\u00a0 He writes:<\/p>\n

“Has the so-called Prosperity gospel<\/a>
\nturned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and
\nhence, victims — of the current financial crisis? That’s what a scholar
\nof the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While
\nresearching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a
\nreligion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he
\nrealized that Prosperity’s central promise — that God will “make a way”
\nfor poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an
\nadditional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom.
\nWalton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to
\nbelieve “God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me
\nwith my first house.” The results, he says, “were disastrous, because
\nthey pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole depressing story here.\u00a0<\/a> I heard a great quote attributed to Rick Warren.\u00a0 “The only people getting prosperous from the prosperity gospel are the preachers.”\u00a0 Ain’t it the truth.\u00a0 May there be some judgment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Van Biema reports in Time on the so called Prosperity Gospel: the congregants who believed, the lenders who were eager to take advantage of them, and the disaster this dangerous heresy has wrought.\u00a0 He writes: “Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy"],"yoast_head":"\nMain Street Casualities of the Prosperity Gospel - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Main Street Casualities of the Prosperity Gospel - 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Progressive Revival","og_description":"David Van Biema reports in Time on the so called Prosperity Gospel: the congregants who believed, the lenders who were eager to take advantage of them, and the disaster this dangerous heresy has wrought.\u00a0 He writes: “Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-10-04T22:48:55+00:00","author":"Paul Raushenbush","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html","name":"Main Street Casualities of the Prosperity Gospel - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-10-04T22:48:55+00:00","dateModified":"2008-10-04T22:48:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/10\/casualities-of-the-prosperity.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Main Street Casualities of the Prosperity Gospel"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/79cf4745abafd37be8b44cd0493ca805","name":"Paul Raushenbush","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/8a4\/8a469b4689362184dbcd8bfb43296365x96.jpg","caption":"Paul Raushenbush"},"description":"Rev. Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}