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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 9 22</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><strong>We can thank the late economic justice warrior for her groundbreaking contribution in showing that “positive thinking” is part of a whitewashing of economic inequality.</strong></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Although the late&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Barbara Ehrenreich</span>&nbsp;was best known for her 2001 bestselling book&nbsp;<em>Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America</em>, which chronicled the real-life impacts of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, she made an equally great contribution to economic justice with her subsequent book exposing the cult of positive thinking.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">This article was produced by&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Ehrenreich, who passed away on September 1, 2022, at age 81, had started her professional life with a PhD in cell biology. She didn’t relegate her journalism to mere facts. She delved as deep as she could—to a microscopic level—to make sense of the world. We concluded from&nbsp;Nickel and Dimed&nbsp;that people were not making it in America. But we realized through her book&nbsp;<b><a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/external/title/9780312658854/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America</a>&nbsp;that the economy was proceeding unimpeded by this fact because we were putting a smiley face on inequality.</b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The Great Recession began in 2007. Two years later, in 2009, Ehrenreich published&nbsp;<em>Bright-Sided</em>. Two years after that, in 2011, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests began in New York’s Zuccotti Park and spread throughout the country. OWS participants called damning attention to the stark economic split between the haves and the have-nots, in this case the wealthiest “1 percent” of Americans and the rest of us—the “99 percent.” There was no putting a smiley face on the economy in that moment.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It was during this period that I had the honor of&nbsp;<a href="https://risingupwithsonali.com/remembering-barbara-ehrenreich-in-her-own-words/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">interviewing Ehrenreich</a>. She explained that “there is a whole industry in the United States that got an investment in this idea that if you just think positively, if you expect everything to turn out alright, if you’re optimistic and cheerful and upbeat, everything&nbsp;<em>will</em>&nbsp;be alright.”</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Ehrenreich, who survived cancer, said she began her investigation into the ideology of positive thinking when she had breast cancer, roughly six years before&nbsp;<em>Bright-Sided</em>&nbsp;was published. That’s when she realized what a uniquely American phenomenon it was to put a positive spin on everything, even cancer.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">When she looked for online support groups of other women struggling with cancer, what she found was, “constant exhortations to be positive about the disease, to be cheerful and optimistic.” Such an approach obscures the central question of, “why do we have an epidemic of breast cancer?” she said.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><b>She applied that idea to how positive thinking was obscuring questions of economic inequality.&nbsp;</b>And she found that there was an entire industry built up to assure financially struggling Americans that their poverty stemmed from their own negative thinking and that they could turn things around if they simply visualized wealth, embraced a can-do attitude about their bleak futures and willed money to flow into their lives. Central to this industry are “the coaches, the motivational speakers, the inspirational posters to put up on the office walls,” and more, said Ehrenreich.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">She also connected the rise of the American megachurch to the rising cult of the positive-thinkers. “The megachurches are not about Christianity. The megachurches are about how you can prosper because God wants you to be rich,” she said.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Joel Osteen, the pastor of a Houston-based megachurch, is perhaps one of the best-known leaders of the so-called prosperity gospel.</b>&nbsp;In one of his sermons—conveniently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hybbKSS_Ul4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">posted online as a slick YouTube video</a>&nbsp;to reach a maximum audience—Osteen claims that according to “the scripture,” “the wealth of the ungodly is laid up for the righteous,” and that “it will be transferred into the hands of the righteous.” His congregants may be tempted to imagine bank transfers from wealthy atheists magically pouring into their accounts.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Osteen has been the beneficiary of serious wealth transfers from his own congregants into his pockets, so much so that he can afford to live in a&nbsp;<a href="https://houston.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/07-04-10-after-move-to-river-oaks-joel-osteen-wants-to-sell-tanglewood-land-for-11-million/#slide=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$10 million mansion</a>. There’s no conundrum here, for Osteen is living proof to his followers that the power of positive thinking works.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><b>Ehrenreich pointed out that the whole point of these churches is to create a positive experience for their congregants and to project a notion of exciting possibilities. The megachurch phenomenon is centered on “the idea that the church should not be disturbing. You don’t want to have a negative message at church. So that’s why you won’t even find a cross on the wall.”</b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Perhaps this is because the image of a bloodied, half-naked Jesus Christ nailed by his hands and feet to a wooden cross is just too painful to bear and might detract from dreams of future Ferraris and private jets. “What a downer that would be!” exclaimed Ehrenreich.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Where did the cult of positive thinking originate? “American corporate culture is saturated with this positive thinking ideology,” especially in the 1990s and 2000s, said Ehrenreich. “It grew because corporations needed a way to manage downsizing, which really began in the 1980s.”</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Businesses that laid off masses of employees had a message that Ehrenreich encapsulated as, “you’re getting eliminated… but it’s really an opportunity for you. It’s a great thing; you’ve got to look at this positively. Don’t complain, don’t be a whiner, you’re not a victim, etc.”</span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">Such sentiments percolated into the mainstream. Americans internalized the idea that losing one’s job has got to be a sign that something better is coming along and that “<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/everything-happens-reason-dont-let-layoff-get-best-you-klebart/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">everything happens for a reason</a>.” The alternative is to blame one’s employer, or even the design of the U.S. economy. And that would be dangerous to Wall Street and corporate America.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><b>Another purpose of fostering positive thinking among those who are laid off is, as per Ehrenreich, “to extract more work from those who survive layoffs.</b>” Indeed, we have an ugly culture of overwork in the U.S., with corporate employees having normalized the idea that they need to work insanely late hours, work on the weekends, and take on exhaustive amounts of responsibilities. After all, those who remain employed, unlike their laid-off former colleagues, ought to feel lucky to have a job—more positive thinking.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">There may be a breaking point now, one that Ehrenreich thankfully lived to see, as a newer set of phenomena began emerging since the COVID-19 pandemic began. They include the “<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">great resignation</a>,” a term for masses of Americans quitting thankless jobs. And, more recently, “<a href="https://www.ajc.com/life/opinion-quiet-quitting-is-a-call-for-workplace-change/P3PCYST66NFEJCN73DHEU4NNPM/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">quiet quitting</a>,” which is a new name for an older union-led idea of “work to rule” as workers are starting to only put in the hours they are paid to work and no more. How novel!</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">We owe Ehrenreich a debt of gratitude for shining a light not only on the perversity of the U.S. economic system but also on the gauzy veil of positive thinking that obscures the obscenity. Ehrenreich may not have lived to see her ideas of economic justice be fully realized. But, as she&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/books/barbara-ehrenreich-dead.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">once told the New Yorker</a>, “The idea is not that we will win in our own lifetimes and that’s the measure of us but that we will die trying.”</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><strong>Author Bio</strong>: Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.risingupwithsonali.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">“Rising Up With Sonali,”</a>&nbsp;a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the&nbsp;<a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/economy-for-all/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Economy for All</a>&nbsp;project at the Independent Media Institute.</p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10 21 an</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">joel Osteen is a multi-millionaire, but that didn't stop him from taking full advantage of the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020. The New York Daily News, however, reports that <b>Osteen has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-joel-osteen-multimillionaire-lakewood-church-repays-4-million-ppp-loans-20211011-6viikyot5bg7bnnor5ruogit3e-story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">returned the $4.4 million</a>&nbsp;it received in PPP loans.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Osteen, who operates Lakewood Church in Houston, generated a lot of controversy when he took that PPP money — as the Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help small businesses that were struggling financially because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Lakewood is not a small business; it is a<b> megachurch with hundreds of employees.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The New York Daily News' Theresa Braine explains, <b>"The loans are meant for businesses with fewer than 500 employees, but the coronavirus funds were distinguished by the number of religious institutions that took advantage of the funds. In Texas alone, more than 1000 religious groups got money from the federal program, </b>the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported last December."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Osteen, Braine notes, has a reported net worth of $100 million and drives a Ferrari.</b></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">The Lakewood pastor has been a leading proponent of what is known as "prosperity theology" or "the prosperity gospel" in evangelical Christianity. It teaches that the rich are rich because God has blessed them, and prosperity theology — which equates affluence with morality and poverty with immorality — is highly controversial among Christians.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics of prosperity theology argue that its celebration of greed and materialism is unbiblical, pointing to quotes from the Holy Bible such as "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24) and "the love of money is the root of all evil" (Timothy 6:10).</font></p></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/heres-why-new-bbc-report-trumps-predatory-behavior-wont-sway-his-evangelical</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no secret that President Trump is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-even-more-unpopular-europe-he-us-survey-shows-790700" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wildly unpopular in Europe</a>, and a 30-minute BBC report that aired earlier this week as part of the “BBC Panorama” series is unlikely to improve his image overseas.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Titled “Trump: Is the President a Sex Pest?,” the report contains anecdotes describing&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/396279-bbc-is-trump-a-sex-pest" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Trump’s creepy behavior around women</a>&nbsp;in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the women interviewed, Barbara Pilling, alleged that when she met Trump at a party in New York City in the late 1980s and told him she was only 17, he responded, “Oh, great. So, you’re not too old and not too young. That’s just great.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pilling recalled, “I felt I was in the presence of a shark.'&nbsp; Another interviewee, Heather Braden, alleged that when she met Trump at a&nbsp;<a href="https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3qz3j/trump-was-like-a-predator-toward-teens-at-parties-in-80s-and-90s-says-bbc-report" style="text-decoration-line: none;">party in Miami</a>&nbsp;in the 1990s that was attended by 50 female models and only four men, she “felt like a piece of meat in a market.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The BBC report is hardly the first time Trump has been described as disrespectful of women.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/04/of-course-he-said-it-billy-bush-counters-trumps-pussy-tape-claims" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Allegations of sexism and misogyny</a>&nbsp;dogged him throughout his presidential campaign of 2016.&nbsp;<b>But those allegations didn’t scare away far-right Christian fundamentalists</b>&nbsp;two years ago when they came out in droves to vote for him, and the BBC report is most unlikely to bother them either. In the minds of the Christian Right, the prosperity gospel gives Trump a sort of diplomatic immunity regardless of allegations that he sexually harassed women in the past or had sex with adult film star Stormy Daniels.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Christianity is diverse and complex in the United States, which has its share of Christians who lean to the left economically—for example, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church members who are civil rights activists or Sister Mary Scullion (a Catholic nun famous for her liberal/progressive activism and efforts on behalf of the poor and the homeless). Scullion is most certainly not a proponent of the right-wing prosperity gospel, which teaches that the rich are rich because God has blessed them and the poor are poor because God is punishing their immorality. &nbsp;</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">Prosperity theology&nbsp;</b>is common among white Pentecostal fundamentalists;<b> Pastor Joel Osteen, for example, is a strong proponent</b>. Although the Houston, Texas-based evangelical never officially endorsed his presidential campaign in 2016, Osteen described Trump as a “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-harvey-joel-osteen-trump-prosperity-gospel-661851" style="text-decoration-line: none;">friend of our ministry</a>” and “a good man.” And Osteen is hardly the only white evangelical who admires the president. Among the far-right white Christians he has courted, Trump hasn’t lost any popularity.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a May 2017 lecture, Kate Bowler—religious scholar and author of the 2013 book “Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel”—described Trump as the “first American president whose only religious impulses arise from the American prosperity gospel” and explained that “Trump is, in short, the&nbsp;<a href="https://faithangle.org/wp-content/uploads/Blessed-A-History-of-the-American-Prosperity-Gospel-Dr.-Kate-Bowler-1.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">prosperity gospel’s religious trifecta</a>.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As liberal sex columnist Dan Savage—a blistering critic of Trump—has pointed out, the president is merely portraying a social issue and has hardly lived his life like one. But Trump, Savage noted, gets a pass from far-right white evangelicals because he’s willing to help them abuse the poor and people of color.Right-wing libertarians and right-wing evangelicals have very different views in some respects. While many libertarians combine extreme fiscal conservatism with socially liberal views on abortion, porn, marijuana and same-sex marriage (for example, 2016 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson), the prosperity gospel combines extreme fiscal conservatism with a disdain for those things—although the ultra-rich are so adored in prosperity theology that Trump’s evangelical supporters are quite happy to overlook his sexual history. To prosperity theologists, Trump wouldn’t be so rich if he didn’t enjoy God’s stamp of approval.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Trump’s overall approval ratings in the U.S. are lower than President Barack Obama’s were—Trump enjoyed a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2018/05/trumps-gallup-approval-rating-43-percent" style="text-decoration-line: none;">43% approval</a>&nbsp;among the overall U.S. population in a Gallup poll in May—they are high among&nbsp;<a href="https://harvardpolitics.com/culture/tevangelistinchief/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">white Protestant evangelicals</a>. A March survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that among that demographic, Trump enjoys an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/30/17301282/race-evangelicals-trump-support-gerson-atlantic-sexism-segregation-south" style="text-decoration-line: none;">approval rating of 75%</a>. And that’s the same crowd that detested Obama when he was president despite the fact that he has a much longer history of attending church and obviously knows a lot more about the Bible. Obama has obviously led a much more clean-cut life than Trump, but to the Christian Right and proponents of prosperity theology, that doesn’t matter. Right-wing white evangelicals equate Donald “Grab ‘Em by the Pussy” Trump with money and power—and therefore, Christian morality—while equating Obama with socialism and giveaways for poor Americans they consider freeloaders, although truth be told, Obama was a decidedly centrist president even though his rhetorical style could sound very populist at times.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The chances that the BBC’s “Trump: Is the President a Sex Pest?” will harm the president’s relationship with his far-right white evangelical supporters are slim and none. And with Trump appointing wingnuts like Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh—severe fiscal conservatives who are also severe social conservatives—to the U.S. Supreme Court, his popularity among the Christian Right is likely to grow even stronger.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump, as Savage asserted, is merely portraying a social conservative. But it’s a portrayal that is working extremely well for him among far-right white evangelicals who hate the poor as much as they hate abortion, porn and same-sex marriage.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">newsweek no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HURRICANE HARVEY</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>JOEL OSTEEN</div><div>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP</div><div>THEOLOGY</div><div>CHRISTIANITY</div><div>
</div><div><b>Joel Osteen has faced a storm of criticism since Hurricane Harvey hit Texas.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The Houston televangelist came under fire after the hurricane dumped 27 trillion gallons of rain on Texas, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Commentators slammed Osteen for delaying the opening of his 16,800-seater megachurch to flood refugees until four days after the storm made landfall.</div><div>
</div><div>Much of the anger focused on Osteen’s own wealth, which has been estimated north of $40 million.</div><div>...</div><div>
</div><div>But Osteen was not fazed. The 54-year-old preacher said he had been a victim of a “misinformation” campaign and encouraged victims of Harvey to turn to their faith for solace.</div><div>
</div><div>As pastor of the United States’s biggest church—Lakewood reportedly has a weekly attendance of more than 40,000—Osteen is used to coming under scrutiny. And as one of the best-known proponents of a controversial brand of Christianity known as prosperity theology, or the prosperity gospel, Osteen is no stranger to receiving flak, both from inside and outside Christian circles.</div><div>
</div><div>Joel Osteen</div><div>Joel Osteen, the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, conducts a service as the city starts the process of rebuilding after severe flooding during Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, on September 3.</div><div>JOE RAEDLE/GETTY</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Prosperity theology has been characterized as the theological equivalent to the American Dream.</b> The essence of the prosperity gospel is simple: Faith brings rewards, not only in the afterlife—as taught in all mainstream forms of Christianity—but also in the earthly life. These rewards can take the form of health, career success, and, most controversially, wealth.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Read more: “We’ve got the White House on speed dial.” How evangelicals are influencing Trump]</span></div><div>
</div><div>The movement grew out of 20th-century U.S. televangelism, among other influences. Preachers such as Oral Roberts and William Branham led major revivals across the country in the mid-1900s. The revivals would be spectacular events, including healings and promises of well being. John Osteen, the father of Joel, was part of this movement and founded Lakewood Church in 1959; Joel would succeed his father as pastor.</div><div>
</div><div>Osteen has previously denied being a prosperity preacher in the sense of wealth. “If prosperity means God wants us to be blessed and healthy and have good relationships, then yes, I’m a prosperity teacher. But if it’s about money, no, I never preach about money,” said Osteen in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Newsweek reached out to Lakewood and Joel Osteen Ministries for an interview with Osteen, but received no response.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Joel Osteen</div><div>?</div><div>@JoelOsteen</div><div>&nbsp;You don’t grow in the good times, you grow in the tough times. Watch this encouraging message from Joel: http://ow.ly/h5Mw30eV3TK&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>5:46 AM - Sep 5, 2017</div><div>6,517</div><div>
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</div><div>But experts disagree. Kate Bowler, an expert on prosperity theology, tells Newsweek that Osteen falls into the category of “soft prosperity preachers,” who focus on positive thinking as a means to achieve one’s life ambitions, including wealth. But, according to Osteen’s theology, “life’s circumstances still depend on a believer’s use of faith,” says Bowler, a professor at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina and author of Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel.</div><div>
</div><div>Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, is more forthright. “At best he’s a <b>motivational speaker. He’s in the line of Norman Vincent Peale </b>and others who tell you how to live your best life now, God’s going to bless you if you do certain things. He’s prosperity gospel through and through,” Butler tells Newsweek.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Perhaps Osteen should not be shy to admit his fondness for prosperity theology, since it appears to be<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> popular with believers. While evangelical leaders have renounced it—a 2011 Pew Research Center report found that 90 percent of global evangelical leaders rejected the notion that God would grant health and wealth to those with enough faith—that does not appear to be the case among ordinary believers</span>. A 2006 Pew survey found that 46 percent of U.S. Christians agreed that God grants believers material prosperity, while 56 percent thought believers would be rewarded with good health. Among Pentecostal Americans, the figures were even higher, at 66 percent for wealth and 68 percent for health.</div><div>
</div><div>Lakewood Church</div><div>Parishioners of Lakewood Church led by Pastor Joel Osteen pray together during a service in Houston, Texas on September 3. The bill, released today, would allow churches to endorse political candidates by curtailing the so-called Johnson Amendment.</div><div>JOE RAEDLE/GETTY</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One person with whom the prosperity gospel appears to have found a home is President Trump. The Trump family attended Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, where the pastor was Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, a 1952 book that sold millions and was translated into more than a dozen languages.</span> Trump has cited Peale as a mentor, telling the Iowa Family Leadership Summit in 2015 that he could listen to Peale “all day long. And when you left the church, you were disappointed it was over. He was the greatest guy.”</div><div>
</div><div>The presidential board of evangelical advisers, convened by Trump in 2016 to help him (successfully) court the religious right vote, also comprises of several high-profile prosperity preachers. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s closest spiritual adviser, Paula White, the pastor of a Florida megachurch and popular Christian commentator, is one. White told an audience at a 2007 event: <b>“Anyone who tells you to deny yourself is from Satan</b></span><b>.”</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Kenneth Copeland, another Texas televangelist, teaches that “financial prosperity is God’s will for you”</b> and that believers should pray for financial provision from God. (<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Osteen is not on the board and never officially endorsed Trump’s presidential bid, though he did describe Trump as a “friend of our ministry” and “a good man.”)</span></div><div>
</div><div>Trump’s mantra of making America great again, which emphasizes American exceptionalism; his championing of his own personal wealth; and his connections to Pentecostal prosperity theology make him the “first American president whose only religious impulses arise from the American prosperity gospel,” said Bowler in a May lecture. “Trump is, in short, the prosperity gospel’s religious trifecta,” she said.</div><div>
</div><div>Trump day of prayer declaration</div><div>President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and faith leaders say a prayer September 1 during the signing of a proclamation to declare Sunday, September 3, as a National Day of Prayer for people affected by Hurricane Harvey.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>In religious circles, prosperity theology has long been controversial for seeming to equate poverty with falling out of God’s favor and apparently contradicting outright many biblical verses. (The Beatitudes, a key segment of Jesus’s teaching, begins : “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.)</div><div>
</div><div>But according to some experts, the theology also has political ramifications. Paul Djupe, associate professor at Denison University specializing in religion and politics, says that the ideas behind the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> prosperity theology—that an individual is responsible for their socioeconomic status, and that financial well being is an indicator of goodness—have permeated Republican politics. “It can be found in the <b>anemic support for welfare and the safety net, weak support for regulations on business, weak support for organized labor, </b>and <b>positive feelings toward the wealthy,</b>” Djupe tells Newsweek via email.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Butler, who recently penned a New York Times editorial on Osteen’s reaction to Harvey, says that prosperity theology leaves little room for compassion for the marginalized. She cites Trump’s recent decision to scrap the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) scheme—which protects some 800,000 undocumented immigrants born or raised in the United States—as an example. Trump previously said that he had a “big heart” for those protected by DACA and has tried to calm fears of those under the scheme since its rescinding was announced.</div><div>
</div><div>DACA protest</div><div>
</div><div>Immigrants and supporters march past the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles as undocumented people jailed inside tap on the windows in opposition to President Donald Trump's order to end DACA on September 5. Around 800,000 undocumented immigrants, known as DREAMers, benefit from immigration protections under DACA.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>“You make a decision based on the fact that there’s 800,000 people here who have only known America as their own country. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So he can’t have compassion for them and let them stay in?” says Butler. “That’s part of the problem with these [prosperity gospel] people: they’re rigid, they’re unbending, they believe that their success is based on the fact that they have followed this formula. As we all know, sometimes formulas don’t work.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>In the wake of Harvey, Osteen and Trump were perhaps the two public figures who came in for most scrutiny. (Trump was criticized for not visiting victims during an initial visit to Texas, which he rectified on a later second visit.) But given prosperity theology’s denunciation of negative thoughts and exaltation of the positive, the criticism is unlikely to have any lasting impact.</div><div>
</div><div><b>“Trump and Osteen are really two sides of the same coin,” says Butler. “They’re both selling the same thing. They’re selling their success, their wealth: ‘You can do it too if you just pay attention to me.’”</b></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">snopes</font></div><div><div class="article-text-inner" style="box-sizing: inherit;" segoe="Segoe" ui="UI" roboto="Roboto" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;7 October 2015, televangelist Joel Osteen made an appearance on the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a href="http://radio.foxnews.com/2015/10/07/joel-osteen-trump-is-an-incredible-communicator-a-good-man/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; position: relative;">Kilmeade And Friends</a></em>radio show, during which Osteen said that he understood Trump’s “make our country great again” message:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 20px 0px; background: 13px 8px no-repeat rgb(244, 244, 243); padding: 14px 14px 14px 28px; position: relative;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think [the message] resonates to, ‘Hey, maybe the country is not where it should be. Let’s get back to where we were.’ Like you said, Mr. Trump is an incredible communicator and brander, like Mr. Clinton said. He’s been a friend of our ministry. He’s a good man.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Several months after Osteen’s appearance on the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Kilmeade and Friends</em>&nbsp;show, his comments began to recirculate under misleading headlines which insinuated that that Osteen had officially endorsed Trump for president. For example, entertainment web site&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Evenin-Tea.com&nbsp;</em>published a video of Osteen’s comments under the title “Guess Who’s Endorsing Trump, Joel Freaking Osteen – You Done Yet? This Latest Trump Endorsement Is Gonna Rock Some Worlds.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Osteen’s admiring comments fell far short of an actual endorsement, the televangelist still found it necessary to clarify his political position. In March 2016, his church released a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/rolandsmartinfanpage/posts/10153548949577831" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation; position: relative;">statement</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 20px 0px; background: 13px 8px no-repeat rgb(244, 244, 243); padding: 14px 14px 14px 28px; position: relative;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 0px; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contrary to the misinformation currently making the rounds on social media, Pastor Joel Osteen has not endorsed any candidate for President of the United States.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 1rem; line-height: 25px; letter-spacing: 0.01em; position: relative;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Preacher and televangelist Joel Osteen is the pastor at Houston-based Lakewood Church, the one of the largest in the United States.</font></p><div class="article-notation" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">t burton</font></div><div style=""><div class="c-entry-hero__header-wrap" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: flex; flex-flow: row nowrap; justify-content: space-between; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="c-page-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0.6rem 0px 0px; flex: 1 1 0px; max-width: 1014px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The prosperity gospel, explained: Why Joel Osteen believes that prayer can make you rich</font></h1></div><h2 class="c-entry-summary p-dek" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); max-width: 852px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The long, strange history of a quintessentially American theology.</font></h2></div><div style=""><p id="OlHCVw" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In the wake of Tropical Storm Harvey, which has resulted in the deaths of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/harvey-texas-flooding.html?mcubz=0" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">at least 46</a>&nbsp;people, few narratives have captured the public imagination — or anger — like that of Joel Osteen and his Lakewood Church, one of the largest megachurches in the country. Osteen’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/29/16220148/joel-osteen-houston-megachurch-opens-harvey-victims-backlash" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">seeming hesitation</a>&nbsp;in opening the church as a shelter for evacuees provoked an intense social media backlash.</font></p><p id="XEBxPb" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lakewood’s representatives maintain that the church was opened as soon as it was safe and feasible to do so. But whether the backlash was founded or not, it reflects the profoundly ambiguous feelings Americans of different faiths have about wildly wealthy preachers like<b>&nbsp;Osteen — whose net worth is estimated at over $50 million&nbsp;</b>— and about the “prosperity gospel” he preaches.</font></p><p id="5624rf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Laura Turner notes in an&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/lauraturner/people-were-waiting-for-a-reason-to-hate-joel-osteen?utm_term=.foEdMPZ3Y#.pbMdj5nE6" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">excellent piece</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;for BuzzFeed, no theological tradition is as rife for accusations of hypocrisy as the “prosperity gospel,” a distinctively American theological tradition.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While it’s popular among many evangelical Protestants, it’s been condemned by many others. But to many of its critics, especially since the election of Donald Trump, this tradition has come to represent the worst of the conflation of American-style capitalism, religion, and Republican party politics.</span></font></p><h3 id="QTWG8W" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The prosperity gospel has its roots in an American occult tradition called New Thought</font></h3><p id="d1Iex0" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The prosperity gospel is an umbrella term for a group of ideas — popular among charismatic preachers in the evangelical tradition — that equate Christian faith with material, and particularly financial, success. It has a long history in American culture, with figures like Osteen and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/02/us/ex-television-evangelist-bakker-ends-prison-sentence-for-fraud.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker</a>, glamorous, flashily-dressed televangelists whose Disneyland-meets-Bethlehem Christian theme park, Heritage USA, was once the third-most-visited site in America.</font></p><p id="rjyrRK" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A 2006&nbsp;<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1533448,00.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Times</em></a>&nbsp;poll found that 17 percent of American Christians identify explicitly with the movement, while 31 percent espouse the idea that “if you give your money to God God will bless you with more money.” A full 61 percent agree with the more general idea that “God wants people to be prosperous.”</font></p><p id="axsEL8" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Its roots, though, don’t just lie in explicitly Christian tradition. In fact, it’s possible to trace the origins of the American prosperity gospel to the tradition of</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;New Thought, a nineteenth-century spiritual movement popular with decidedly unorthodox thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Practitioners of New Thought, not all of whom identified as Christian, generally held the divinity of the individual human being and the priority of mind over matter. In other words, if you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness its material results. New Thought, also known as the “mind cure,” took many forms: from interest in the occult to splinter-Christian denominations like Christian Science to the development of the “talking cure” at the root of psychotherapy.</span></font></p><p id="bmhEq6" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The upshot of New Thought, though, was the quintessentially American idea that the individual was responsible for his or her own happiness, health, and situation in life, and that applying mental energy in the appropriate direction was sufficient to cure any ills.</b></font></p><p id="1IWajQ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thus, New Thought thinker Ralph Waldo<b>&nbsp;Trine (not to be confused with Ralph Waldo Emerson)</b>&nbsp;could exhort his readers to “See yourself in a prosperous condition. Affirm that you will before long be in a prosperous condition.”</font></p><p id="sbhyz8" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to influencing Christian movements like the prosperity gospel, New Thought has also made its way into many “secular" aspects of American life, including the tradition of positive-thinking self-help represented by books like&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Secret,&nbsp;</em>which was written by an Australian but gained popularity when promoted by Oprah.</font></p><h3 id="DFVcCH" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today’s prosperity gospel was also shaped by pro-capitalist and Pentecostal thought traditions</font></h3><p id="dJQ00Y" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A&nbsp;<b>second strand in the development of the American prosperity gospel was the valorization of the “Protestant work ethic.”</b></font></p><p id="5fcHMB" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Written in 1905, Max Weber’s&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism</em>&nbsp;traced what he saw as the specifically Protestant approach to labor as integral to the development of capitalism and industrialization.</font></p><p id="vEe5h6" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Weber’s historical analysis, Protestant Calvinists — who generally believe in the idea of “predestination,” or that God has chosen some people to be saved and others damned — felt the need to justify their own sense of themselves as the saved. They looked both for outward signs of God’s favor (i.e., through material success) and for ways to express inward virtue (i.e., through hard work). While the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">accuracy</em>&nbsp;of Weber’s analysis is still debated by scholars, it nevertheless tells us a lot about cultural attitudes at the time Weber wrote it.</font></p><p id="UufPv7" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By 1905, at least, the idea that working hard and receiving material, financial reward&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">for</em>&nbsp;that work was integral to a certain strand of Protestant Christianity had entered the public consciousness. According to a&nbsp;<a href="https://psmag.com/economics/protestant-worth-ethic-real-65544" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">recent Dutch study</a>, that point of view still holds true today: Protestants and citizens of predominately Protestant countries tend to conflate labor with personal satisfaction more than those of other religious traditions.</font></p><p id="UqrhGk" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A final strand of the development of the prosperity gospel was the development of charismatic Pentecostal churches in America</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">An umbrella term for a decentralized group of churches — comprising over 700 denominations — Pentecostal churches are characterized by an emphasis on what is known as “spiritual gifts” (or&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">charisms,&nbsp;</em>from which the term “charismatic” is drawn). A worshipful Christian might experience, for example, the gift of healing, or might suddenly start speaking “in tongues.” This tradition of worship meant that, for a believer, the idea that God would manifest Himself to the faithful in concrete, miraculous ways&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">in the here and now</em></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">was more prevalent than it would be in, say, a mainline Episcopalian church. In addition, the decentralized nature of these churches also meant that individual leaders, many of whom practiced faith healing or similar practices, had a particularly strong effect on their congregations and could build up individual personal followings.</span></font></p><p id="9Yw09S" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These three strands collided throughout the twentieth century, as the prosperity gospel came into being. It started — like the “work ethic” Max Weber described — as a way to justify why, during the<b>&nbsp;Gilded Age</b>, some people were rich and others poor. (One early prosperity gospel proponent, Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzarras/2011/12/02/acres-of-diamonds-occupy-wall-street/#5bfa47a95c8a" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">told his mostly-destitute congregation</a>&nbsp;in 1915: “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor.”) Instead of blaming structural inequality, Conwell and those like him<b>blamed the perceived failures of the individual</b>.</font></p><p id="3JBcab" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Throughout the twentieth century, proponents of this particularly American blend of theology envisaged God as a kind of banker, dispensing money to the deserving, with Jesus as a model business executive. Both of these characterizations were, at times, literal: In 1936, New Thought mystic and founder of the Unity Church Charles Fillmore rewrote Psalm 23 to read, “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good”; in 1925, advertising executive Bruce Bowler wrote&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Man Nobody Knows</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/the-trump-nobody-knows/486251/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600; background-color: transparent !important;">to argue that Jesus</a>&nbsp;was the first great capitalist. The literal money quote reads, “Some day ... someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.”</font></p><p id="EgkcEx" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Yet it was in Pentecostal churches — with their focus on immediate spiritual gifts and the power of God to confer favor (and wellness) immediately — that the prosperity gospel as we know it today took hold.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The “Word of Faith” movement — a Pentecostal version of New Thought that saw positive affirmation as central to financial and material success — became more prominent. Figures like Kenneth Hagin, his protégé Kenneth Copeland,&nbsp;<b>Oral Robert</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>s,&nbsp;</b>and, of course,&nbsp;<b>Osteen</b>&nbsp;himself built up individual followings: followings that often grew as a result of&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">cross-promotion (something religious historian Kate Bowler points out in her excellent&nbsp;<a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBlessed-History-American-Prosperity-Gospel%2Fdp%2F0199827699" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Blessed</em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">,</em>&nbsp;a history of the prosperity gospel movement). One preacher might, for example, feature another at his conference, or hawk his cassette tapes.</span></font></p><p id="ML6XVQ" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Central to the prosperity gospel was the idea of tithing</b>, or giving money to the church, ideally one's “first fruits” — or initial earnings. This money, many prosperity gospel preachers promised, was an investment. By showing faith, parishioners could have a “hundredfold” return on their investment, a reference to a verse in the Gospel of Mark about those who suffer for Christ receiving a hundredfold what they have lost. Thus could Ken Copeland write in his&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Laws of Prosperity</em>, "Do you want a hundredfold return on your money? Give and let God multiply it back to you. No bank in the world offers this kind of return! Praise the Lord!” In this mentality, tithing is a financially responsible thing to do. It’s a show of faith and a shrewd investment alike, a wager on the idea that God acts in the here and now to reward those with both faith and a sufficiently developed work ethic.</font></p><h3 id="CNnMiz" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 0.6rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the evangelical leaders that surround Trump are proponents of the prosperity gospel</font></h3><p id="fzSJsw" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The prosperity gospel tended to ebb and flow in accordance with wider cultural trends —</b>&nbsp;it flourished in the postwar boom of the 1950s, and then again (unsurprisingly) in the no less ostentatious&nbsp;<b>‘80s</b>, when big hair and big money alike were in. Yet despite the catastrophic fall of some of the most prominent proponents of the gospel —&nbsp;<b>Jim Bakker, for example, spent years in prison&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/06/us/bakker-is-convicted-on-all-counts-first-felon-among-tv-evangelists.html?mcubz=0" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent;">for fraud</a>&nbsp;</b>— the movement has persisted well into the present day. Perhaps no less unsurprisingly, two of its&nbsp;<b>major proponents — Paula White and Wayne T. Jackson — were among the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509558608/with-his-choice-of-inauguration-prayer-leaders-trump-shows-his-values" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent;">six faith leaders</a>&nbsp;invited to pray with Donald Trump at his inauguration.</b></font></p><p id="jEXPY8" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Certainly Trump is, in some sense, a product of that mentality. In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">recent op-ed</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The New York Times,&nbsp;</em>theology professor Anthea Butler argued that Donald Trump and Joel Osteen were “mirrors” of one another:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 1.2rem 0px; padding: 0.6rem 1.2rem; border-left: 3px solid rgb(79, 113, 119); overflow: hidden;"><p id="G7jukf" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Both enjoy enormous support among evangelicals, yet they&nbsp;<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/19/americas-most-popular-pastor-doesnt-know-the-bible/#ixzz42tRme486" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">lack</a>&nbsp;a command of biblical scripture. Both are among the 1 percent ... Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Osteen’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/15/how-the-prosperity-gospel-explains-donald-trumps-popularity-with-christian-voters/?utm_term=.f13e531f0a56" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.1s, background-color 0.1s, fill 0.1s; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; font-weight: 600;">brands</a>&nbsp;are rooted in success, not Scripture. Believers in prosperity like winners. Hurricanes and catastrophic floods do not provide the winning narratives crucial to keep adherents chained to prosperity gospel thinking. That is why it is easy for both men to issue platitudes devoid of empathy during natural disasters.</font></p></blockquote><p id="zyMhV5" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It’s difficult to say that the prosperity gospel itself led to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Again, only 17 percent of American Christians identify with it explicitly. It’s far more true, however, to say that the same c</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ultural forces that led to the prosperity gospel’s proliferation in America — individualism, an affinity for ostentatious and charismatic leaders, the Protestant work ethic, and a cultural obsession with the power of “positive thinking” — shape how we, as a nation, approach politics.</span></font></p><p id="AvYGwU" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What is our collective approach to health care, after all, if not rooted in a visceral sense that the unlucky are responsible for their own misfortune? What is our willingness to vote a man like Trump into office but a collective cultural reward for those who brand themselves as successful?</b></font></p><p id="ckUKBp" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After all, Trump may have embraced New Thought more than anyone realized: seeing himself in the White House,&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">affirming</em>&nbsp;himself in the White House, before anyone else saw it coming.</font></p><p id="Whyw42" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He’s gotten his investment back a hundredfold.</font></p><p id="Whyw42" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: inherit; vertical-align: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.2rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">power of pos thinking as kid?]</font></p></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://medium.com/@allanishac/breaking-president-asks-tv-preacher-joel-osteen-to-pray-for-mar-a-lago-716ad2758563">https://medium.com/@allanishac/breaking-president-asks-tv-preacher-joel-osteen-to-pray-for-mar-a-lago-716ad2758563</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IS THIS REAL? appatently not, Onion-esque</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Allan Ishac</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I read. I write. I ride. I rest. I RESIST!</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sep 10, 2017</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Truth In Satire</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Breaking: President Asks TV Preacher Joel Osteen To Pray For Mar-a-Lago</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Begs televangelist: “Please ask the Lord to keep poor people away from my glamorous beach resort and not use it as a storm shelter”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The two “men of God” closing their eyes and raising their arms in a caricature of religious reverence. (Credit: www.telegraph.co.uk and themillenialsnowflake.com)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump turned to White House Spiritual Advisor Joel Osteen on Saturday and asked him to pray for Mar-a-Lago, the real estate tycoon’s upscale beachside resort in Palm Springs, FL that sits in the path of Hurricane Irma.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I asked Joel, a great guy really, to appeal to God for help in keeping local residents from marching into my winter White House and turning it into their own personal Romper Room,” said the president, speaking from Camp David, where he is monitoring the deadly storm with members of his cabinet. “I support people finding shelter, of course, but not in a glamorous golf club like mine where wealthy members are paying $200K a year to join.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mar-a-Lago may need an intervention from God to be saved from the wrath of Hurricane Irma. (Credit: bornrich.com)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Osteen, the controversial televangelist based in Houston, was recently criticized for not opening his 17,000 seat megachurch as a safe shelter for those evacuated from their homes during Hurricane Harvey. The publicity-seeking preacher said he responded to the president’s request by phone: “I told Mr. Trump that I would certainly appeal to the Lord on his behalf, because I understand how important it is for him to protect his magnificent resort, just as it was for me to safeguard my glorious megachurch, out of concern for future revenue generation.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The president named Mr. Osteen his religious and spiritual advisor only last week, in a move that many in the fundamentalist Christian community think might have ulterior motives.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Is it a goddamn coincidence that Joel’s got a 3-handicap and needs a nice place to stay when he’s visiting his faithful in Florida, and the president needs a couple million evangelical votes in the next election? I don’t think so,” said a black preacher from Alabama, who was not asked to join the president’s spiritual advisory team despite supporting him in the last election. “I guess Joel’s money speaks louder to the big man in the sky than mine. Fuck ‘em.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hurricane Irma is expected to hit the Florida coast on Sunday morning at which time televangelists around the country will be leveraging the Biblical-sized disaster to maximize their faith day fundraising appeals.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Author’s Note: I have been criticized in the past week for making light of the destructive and deadly storms that have hit the United States. Yes, it’s true, I’ll try to find humor in anything and I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone. That said, if you must sandbag your home against rising floodwaters, it is best to stack Republicans in the path of the surge because they are heavier, thicker, and less likely to budge.</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joel Osteen Is the Quintessential Religious Figure of the Trump Era ...</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>https://www.rollingstone.com/.../joel-osteen-is-the-quintessential-religious-figure-of-th...</div><div>Aug 31, 2017 - joel osteen pastor houston texas mega church harvey trump era. Joel Osteen at his Lakewood Church in Houston this week. LM Otero/AP.</div><div>How Joel Osteen's Prosperity Gospel Is Guiding Donald Trump</div><div>www.newsweek.com/hurricane-harvey-joel-osteen-trump-prosperity-gospel-661851</div><div>Sep 9, 2017 - Osteen teaches that wealth is a sign of God's favor. He's found a willing advocate in Trump.</div><div>FACT CHECK: Joel Osteen Endorses Donald Trump - Snopes.com</div><div>https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joel-osteen-donald-trump/</div><div>Claim: Televangelist Joel Osteen endorsed Donald Trump.</div><div>Claimed by: Internet</div><div>Fact check by Snopes.com: False</div><div>Feedback</div><div>Joel Osteen, Evangelicals, and Donald Trump | Righting America at ...</div><div>https://rightingamerica.net/joel-osteen-evangelicals-and-donald-trump/</div><div>Oct 16, 2017 - Emily Hunter McGowin has a PhD in theology from the University of Dayton and MDiv from Truett Seminary. Her work is at the intersection of ...</div><div>Opinion | The Cheap Prosperity Gospel of Trump and Osteen - The ...</div><div>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/opinion/trump-osteen-harvey-church.html</div><div>Aug 30, 2017 - Before it began to rain in Houston last week, the spectacularly wealthy pastor Joel Osteen could have opened up his megachurch to serve as a ...</div><div>Here's why people hate Joel Osteen - The Washington Post</div><div>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of.../heres-why-people-hate-joel-osteen/</div><div>Aug 29, 2017 - Joel Osteen's Houston megachurch transforms into shelter. Skip ... [Why Donald Trump's glitzy style is attracting evangelical voters]. Number 2.</div><div>Videos</div><div>
</div><div>4:19</div><div>Breaking: Donald Trump Joel Osteen Sirius Xm Radio Interview Very ...</div><div>Honest News Network</div><div>YouTube - Mar 25, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>6:29</div><div>"CON ARTISTS!!!" Pastor's Son DESTROYS Trump Lackey on JOEL ...</div><div>Dose of Dissonance</div><div>YouTube - Sep 3, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>5:04</div><div>JOEL OSTEEN PRAISES DONALD TRUMP | SENDS SHOCK WAVES ...</div><div>Shady Slim</div><div>YouTube - Mar 14, 2016</div><div>
</div><div>6:29</div><div>"CON ARTISTS!!!" Pastor's Son RIPS JOEL OSTEEN & DONALD ...</div><div>Politics News</div><div>YouTube - Sep 4, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>2:16</div><div>I Stand with Joel Osteen, President Trump and Hurricane Harvey ...</div><div>Steve Spell II</div><div>YouTube - Sep 4, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>41:36</div><div>TYT - 08.29.17: Trump in Corpus Christi, Joel Osteen, NRA Fashion ...</div><div>TYT Shows</div><div>YouTube - Aug 29, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>3:30</div><div>Donald Trump Hurricane Harvey Joel Olsteen</div><div>THE KNOWLEDGE BEAST</div><div>YouTube - Aug 30, 2017</div><div>
</div><div>Joel Osteen: Trump Is An Incredible Communicator & Good Man</div><div>Fox News - Oct 7, 2015</div><div>
</div><div>1:04</div><div>Joel Osteen under fire for calling Trump a 'good man'</div><div>USA TODAY</div><div>YouTube - Mar 15, 2016</div><div>
</div><div>6:29</div><div>'CON ARTISTS!!!' Pastor's Son DESTROYS Trump Lackey on JOEL ...</div><div>The Black Amour Magazine</div><div>YouTube - Sep 4, 2017</div><div>Joel Osteen Talks Tackling Racial, Religious Hostilities in US ...</div><div>https://www.christianpost.com/.../joel-osteen-talks-tackling-racial-religious-hostilities-i...</div><div>Jun 7, 2017 - Pastor Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, has spoken ... the election of President Donald Trump in January, and said that the ...</div><div>Breaking: President Asks TV Preacher Joel Osteen To Pray For Mar-a ...</div><div>https://medium.com/.../breaking-president-asks-tv-preacher-joel-osteen-to-pray-for-m...</div><div>Sep 10, 2017 - President Donald Trump turned to White House Spiritual Advisor Joel Osteen on Saturday and asked him to pray for Mar-a-Lago, the real ...</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">===</font></div></div></div></div>