Maybe We Should Blame God for the Subprime Mess
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David Van Biema, Time, October 3, 2008
{snip} 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. {snip}
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.”
{snip}
(Posted on October 6, 2008)
Comments
I can make this a really easy question. The final admonition in the book of Revelation are direct words from Christ, who basically said not to put words in God’s mouth or take words out of them. I don’t remember anything in the Bible about owning one’s domicile.
Posted by Question Diversity at 5:55 PM on October 6
Let’s see. The preachers made their congregations prey for greedy brokers. And didn’t get a cut.
What a tragedy. :)
Posted by Ore at 6:32 PM on October 6
Well, at least they are not blaming whitey. Blacks will blame everyone, even God, before themselves. Maybe, if there is a God, he might take offense to this and act. Oops, He says, there seems to be one too many races on this planet.
Posted by Flamethrower at 7:42 PM on October 6
… and the derivative financial instruments that multiplied the $100 Billion in bad mortgages into $100 Trillion face value worthless commercial paper with A+ S&P ratings can be blamed on the Devil.
Pleeeese give me a break.
Posted by at 9:32 PM on October 6
God didn’t have a thing to do with it. People blame God when they are too stupid to balance their own checkbooks? Please…
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 10:45 AM on October 7
Of course, the imbecilic author blames “greedy brokers”, while conveniently ignoring the laws and strong arm pressure tactics employed by the government. I love how Time and its Communist writers and editors conveniently ignore the colossal culpability of the government and “community organizers” in this mess. To coin a phrase, for the first time in my adult life I am scared for my country.
Posted by hts at 10:49 AM on October 7
In Baltimore the cry was heard as elsewhere that Blacks were unfairly discriminated against for mortgage loans. Recently the Blacks headed by Mayor Sheila Dixon banded together to sue lender Wells Fargo for unfairly foreclosing on loans they couldn’t afford! Damned if you do or don’t?
Now with the lending crisis at hand two Black congressmen who represent districts with 58% of the foreclosures voted for the Wall Street Bailout with assurances from Barney Frank that their constitents would receive handouts from the Fed setup agency dispensing tax dollars.
Of course we could expect President Barry Obama to oversee things impartially for the taxpayer? Meanwhile we need to be “patriotic” and “fair” to see that these mistreated borrowers will take our money without our permission - wait a minute, isn’t that called stealing?
An update now is that Barney Frank, who’s lover Herb Moses once claimed, “I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus,” and …”On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover” is stating that the GOP is racially motivated to attack democrats who just wanted to help Blacks with bad credit and therefore current criticism of Republicans reveals their “racism”. This red herring is just one more attempt to divert attention away from Frank’s “lover” who was a boss at Fannie Mae! This makes insider trading look pedestrian?
Posted by factualist at 12:40 PM on October 7
it’s the devils fault….he made those blacks, hispanics and other assorted morons, buy into bad loans!! If it isn’t whitey being blamed, it’s God….it is never THEIR OWN FAULT!
Posted by lucylou at 2:52 PM on October 7
Let’s see; smarmy televangelists convince their parishoners that if they give them large donations, God will help them buy McMansion homes they’re “entitled to” but can’t afford, and it’s the mortgage brokers who are “greedy”?
This raises a few questions: 1. What ever happened to living within one’s means? 2. With shepherds like this guiding religious flocks, who needs wolves? 3. Where do the congregation members think the money for those pastors’ Saville Row suits comes from?
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 3:00 PM on October 7
Most days, I park near a Black storefront church. The “Bishop” drives a Bentley, and his daughter, an “Associate Pastor”, drives a Jaguar. I think I’m in the wrong business.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:36 PM on October 7
“Maybe We Should Blame God for the Subprime Mess”
Why not? Certainly everybody else is being blamed.
This is becoming quite a spectacle, with everyone proclaiming their own innocence while pointing the finger at everyone else.
Posted by at 2:06 AM on October 8
Just another variation on the Cargo Cult theme. Nothing new here. Did anybody expect anything different?
Posted by at 5:20 AM on October 8
Bill Maher rightfully would have a field day here. He should do a follow-up documentary.
“God” did not provide a house for these semi-literate black sociopaths; the government and its nonprofit adjuncts (ACORN, NACA, Rainbow/PUSH, NAACP) did. Nobody merits a mortgage loan because of praying. The problem would appear to be “preying.” And preying on the innocent is something blacks always have excelled at.
Posted by Seek at 3:04 PM on October 8