Our Lord and Potter

"In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little Savior."

From the New York Times:

Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

FORT WORTH — Onstage before thousands of believers weighed down by debt and economic insecurity, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and their all-star lineup of “prosperity gospel” preachers delighted the crowd with anecdotes about the luxurious lives they had attained by following the Word of God.

Private airplanes and boats. A motorcycle sent by an anonymous supporter. Vacations in Hawaii and cruises in Alaska. Designer handbags. A ring of emeralds and diamonds.

“God knows where the money is, and he knows how to get the money to you,” preached Mrs. Copeland, dressed in a crisp pants ensemble like those worn by C.E.O.’s.

Even in an economic downturn, preachers in the “prosperity gospel” movement are drawing sizable, adoring audiences. Their message — that if you have sufficient faith in God and the Bible and donate generously, God will multiply your offerings a hundredfold — is reassuring to many in hard times.

The preachers barely acknowledged the recession, though they did say it was no excuse to curtail giving. “Fear will make you stingy,” Mr. Copeland said.
...

“The folks who are coming aren’t poor,” said Jonathan L. Walton, a professor of religion at the University of California, Riverside, who has written about the movement and was there doing research. “They reside in that nebulous category between the working and the middle class.”
...

The Copelands’ broadcast reaches 134 countries, and the ministry’s income is about $100 million annually.

The Bielliers were at the convention a few years ago when a supporter made a pitch for people to join an “Elite CX Team” to raise money to buy the ministry a Citation X airplane. (Mr. Copeland is an airplane aficionado who got his start in ministry as a pilot for Oral Roberts.) At that moment, Mrs. Biellier said she heard the voice of the Holy Spirit telling her, “You were born to support this man.”
...

Mrs. Biellier said some friends and relatives would say the preacher just wanted their money. She explained that the Copelands did not need the money for themselves; it is for their ministry. And besides, even “trashy people like Hugh Hefner” have private airplanes.
...

But while a band primed the crowd, Professor Walton called the prosperity preachers “spiritual pickpockets.”

“To dismiss and ignore the harsh realities of this economic crisis,” he said. “is beyond irresponsible, to the point of reprehensible.”
...

The profession of "preacher" has always come with more than its share of skeevy bunco artists, miscreants and child molesters. But of all the plagues and horrors that Conservatism has unleashed upon the Earth, I would wager that, in the long run, the massive, calculated and brutal mutilation of the New Testament into a "prosperity gospel" -- complete with Jesus Christ, CEO and scripture reduced to a con man's patter -- will turn out to be the most obscene and destructive.