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jrknothead
News Junkie
Joined: Aug 04, 2007
Age: 42
Posts: 1110
Location: Tampa Bay, Florida USA
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 Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject: Time: Maybe We Should Blame God for the Subprime Mess |
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Maybe We Should Blame God for the Subprime Mess
| Quote: | Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims — of the current financial crisis? That's what a scholar of the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While researching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he realized that Prosperity's central promise — that God will "make a way" for poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house." The results, he says, "were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers."
Others think he may be right. Says Anthea Butler, an expert in Pentecostalism at the University of Rochester in New York: "The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.' " Adds J. Lee Grady, editor of the magazine Charisma: "It definitely goes on, that a preacher might say, 'If you give this offering, God will give you a house.' And if they did get the house, people did think that it was an answer to prayer, when in fact it was really bad banking policy." If so, the situation offers a look at how a native-born faith built partially on American economic optimism entered into a toxic symbiosis with a pathological market.
Although a type of Pentecostalism, Prosperity theology adds a distinctive layer of supernatural positive thinking. Adherents will reap rewards if they prove their faith to God by contributing heavily to their churches, remaining mentally and verbally upbeat and concentrating on divine promises of worldly bounty supposedly strewn throughout the Bible. Critics call it a thinly disguised pastor-enrichment scam. Other experts, like Walton, note that for all its faults, the theology can empower people who have been taught to see themselves as financially or even culturally useless to feel they are "worthy of having more and doing more and being more." In some cases the philosophy has matured with its practitioners, encouraging good financial habits and entrepreneurship.
But Walton suggests that a decade's worth of ever easier credit acted like a drug in Prosperity's bloodstream. "The economic boom '90s and financial overextensions of the new millennium contributed to the success of the Prosperity message," he wrote recently on his personal blog as well as on the website Religion Dispatches. And not positively. "Narratives of how 'God blessed me with my first house despite my credit' were common. Sermons declaring 'It's your season to overflow' supplanted messages of economic sobriety," and "little attention was paid to ... the dangers of using one's home equity as an ATM to subsidize cars, clothes and vacations."
With the bubble burst, Walton and Butler assume that Prosperity congregants have taken a disproportionate hit, and they are curious as to how their churches will respond. Butler thinks some of the flashier ministries will shrink along with their congregants' fortunes. Says Walton: "You would think that the current economic conditions would undercut their theology." But he predicts they will persevere, since God's earthly largesse is just as attractive when one is behind the economic eight ball.
A recent publicly posted testimony by a congregant at the Brownsville Assembly of God, near Pensacola, Fla., seems to confirm his intuition. Brownsville is not even a classic Prosperity congregation — it relies more on the anointing of its pastors than on Scriptural promises of God. But the believer's note to his minister illustrates how magical thinking can prevail even after the mortgage blade has dropped. "Last Sunday," it read, "You said if anyone needed a miracle to come up. So I did. I was receiving foreclosure papers, so I asked you to anoint a picture of my home and you did and your wife joined with you in prayer as I cried. I went home feeling something good was going to happen. On Friday the 5th of September I got a phone call from my mortgage company and they came up with a new payment for the next 3 months of only $200. My mortgage is usually $1,020. Praise God for his Mercy & Grace."
And pray that the credit market doesn't tighten any further.
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ValMikeSmith
Velociraptor
Joined: May 19, 2008
Posts: 488
Location: Stranger in a strange land
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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1.Money is a human invention.
2.Biblical money theory is close enough to other things such as karma and
a practical-enough-to-be-true economic theory.*
3.Organized religion is not God.
*more coming... edit: For example: it is better for everyone when money is either spent or given away rather than stuffed in a mattress.
If there was only one dollar in circulation, you could still finance the purchase of something costing more than one dollar, and at the same time many other people could do the same, thus ten people could use the same dollar to buy their own thing that costs ten dollars. If the dollar was in your piggy bank, it would not help anyone at all.
There are many other examples of how money does good in unobvious ways.Beggars may be buying your product, and you can then spend their money, and it is likely that the same coins will be given to them again. ETC.
Money is not wealth. Wealth is created by the flow of money, AND ALSO WITHOUT MONEY.
edit#2: Money grows on trees! Especially in apple orchards and orange groves.
Lack of knowledge can kill you.
An aborigine in his land can live off his land,
while if you get lost there you might starve at a buffet! |
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demeus
Raven
Joined: Jul 25, 2007
Posts: 109
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I got a noble idea. Why not blame ourselves. I am waiting to finally see that article. |
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Postperson
The Daughter of Indifference
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
Age: 51
Posts: 2904
Location: Uz
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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| blame the christians? how pathetic. |
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DW_a_mom
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 23, 2008
Posts: 1251
Location: Northern California
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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The people referred to in this article would be such a small percentage of the whole ... No, I don't buy the assertion, because it's too small a piece.
A very small contributing factor, showing why some of those sucked in got sucked in ... maybe.
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 2507
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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| DW_a_mom wrote: | The people referred to in this article would be such a small percentage of the whole ... No, I don't buy the assertion, because it's too small a piece.
A very small contributing factor, showing why some of those sucked in got sucked in ... maybe. |
I agree. The biggest group was people that believed that the value of property would always increase - the theory was that anything they bought now would soon pay for itself. No problem to buy $500,000 of real estate since it will surely be worth $750,000 when the adjustable rate adjusts - just sell it off then (everyone will still be buying) and pocket the $250,000. Then take the profits, and use it to buy something for a million. Hey, it worked for a while!! |
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 2507
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Postperson wrote: | | blame the christians? how pathetic. |
People that follow the 'Prosperity Gospel' belief are not Christians in my book. They are animists that think they can control God and the universe with a few magic incantations. Just find the secret passage in the Bible and work it!! |
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Postperson
The Daughter of Indifference
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
Age: 51
Posts: 2904
Location: Uz
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| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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yeah i agree, it's a very dubious thing prosperity preaching.
but it's not so much of a 'blame god/pentacostals' notion as a 'blame the poor and needy', the people at the bottom of the food chain. I've seen this nonsense in bureacratic organisations, it's a common one, it must be those people 'down there' who are at fault. sheesh.
It's a basic human need, housing, of course people will try anything to find secure housing. |
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Tim_Tex
WP's Resident Simpsons and South Park Aficionado
Joined: Jul 03, 2004
Age: 28
Posts: 22319
Location: San Marcos, Texas
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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I don't blame god, because the prosperity gospel predates subprime lending by centuries.
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When you need something, that's a responsibility, that only an adult...of my maturity...Bunnies!!!
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monty
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 05, 2007
Posts: 2507
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| What about the Bible's prohibition on charging interest on loans (usury)?? Maybe it is because we had too much predatory creditors. |
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KenM
Phoenix
Joined: Oct 16, 2005
Age: 40
Posts: 627
Location: Mass. USA
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| Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| If you have read alot of my other posts, you see i blame God for alot of things. I'll add this to the list. |
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AngryReptileKeeper
Tufted Titmouse
Joined: Oct 10, 2008
Age: 25
Posts: 44
Location: St. Louis, MO
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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Blame god? I'm sure plenty of folks are doing just that. There's a disturbing trend in America of people refusing to take responsibility for their actions. Like the dumb old hag that spilled coffee on her twat and sued McDonalds. As if she didn't know it was hot... 
I don't feel bad for people whose homes got foreclosed. I think a lot of them probably put themselves in that situation. Mortgage after mortgage to pay for more crap to stuff in their trashy, overpriced McMansions . New cars, unnecessary home improvements, vacations, entertainment centers... The middle class has done this to themselves. I doubt very much that most of these mortgages were to pay for necessary things, like medical attention and the like.
And screw the middle class, anyway. I'm sick of people whining and crying, "help the middle class!" and "the middle class is the new poor!"
What about the lower class?! WE can't afford basic healthcare. WE can't afford homes. WE can't afford college. Nobody ever addresses that. I guess we're all just a lost cause, hm?  |
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Postperson
The Daughter of Indifference
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
Age: 51
Posts: 2904
Location: Uz
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| Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, i'm wondering if the financial crisis will return us to a two class social structure without the large middle class in between. It's a strange phenomen the vast growth of the bourgeouisie over the second half of the twentieth century. |
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Eggman
das Freak'n Techno Viking!
Joined: Jul 18, 2008
Posts: 1866
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| human made messes should be solved bt humans |
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Postperson
The Daughter of Indifference
Joined: Jul 10, 2004
Age: 51
Posts: 2904
Location: Uz
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| Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 6:50 am Post subject: |
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| You don't think the devil did it? |
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