When I started at the University, I used to get irked by the Consuming Fire Fellowship. Over time, I started to loosen up. They were entertaining, full of sound and fury while, signifying nothing. This Sunday, I took another step back and finally understood how harmless they are compared to some of the other evangelical groups out there. While channel surfing this past Sunday, I stopped on TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network.
Think of it as ‘The Bible Network’.  TBN currently themes its programming around the concept of Prosperity Theology, and Sunday morning I was given a crash course how Prosperity Theology works. The sermon I stopped on featured the Rev. Benny Hinn, a mainstay of TBN and one of the most revered proponents of Prosperity Theology.  Hinn refers to his brand of Prosperity Theology as the “supernatural wealth transfer.” Hinn explained that we must “accept the wealth of God and work diligently to achieve it.” Here’s the long and short of it: If you work hard, God rewards you with material wealth.    I was raised Catholic in central Louisiana, so this all seemed strange to me at first. Then I thought all the way back to my early college days and my first sociology class.  Hinn’s words sound an awful lot like those of social theorist Max Weber and his book, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.” If you haven’t read it, I’ll save you some trouble and summarize the book: According to Weber, the Calvinists played a strong role in the development of capitalism, believing God rewarded man’s hard work and piety with wealth. The Calvinists did not intend to foster capitalism – it was merely a side effect of their doctrine and practices.  Weber’s protestant ethic is alive and well in modern evangelism, just with a slightly different message and modern medium. At the University, we’re familiar with Consuming Fire Fellowship. They crowd free speech alley asking students to quit fornicating and to give up their sinful worldly possessions. It’s a nuisance when Consuming Fire interrupts your day, but Hinn’s and other mega churches are a way of life with a membership that numbers in the tens of thousands.   So here we are, the neo-Protestants are helping to make capitalism better right? Not exactly. Weber’s theory is a bit outdated. He didn’t account for TV and probably didn’t expect capitalism to come so far. Prosperity Theology is a thin veil hiding the rampant financial inequality here in the United States. The rich deserve their wealth because they’ve been blessed for their hard work. They don’t just accept the wealth of God, they celebrate it. Their temples are filmed live for TV, and lined with gold and elaborate displays. It kind of makes Consuming Fire’s lonely little sandwich board guy seem a bit pathetic. Maybe our guys just need to work a little harder. Prosperity Theology isn’t exclusive to TV land. All you have to do is take a drive down Florida Boulevard to see a nativity scene unfettered by humility. If you caught it at just right angle it gave the used SUV’s an almost ethereal glow. If that’s not a monument to Prosperity Theology, I don’t know what is. We shouldn’t freak out so much about Consuming Fire. There are far more powerful evangelicals. Seriously, are 30 home-schooled kids and three adults really that much to worry about compared to a capitalist army?    I don’t know the answer – but maybe you can ask the sandwich board guy next time you’re in Free Speech alley.  Whatever it takes get him to quit harping on the fornicators and start making money.
—-Contact Skylar Gremillion at [email protected]