All About Disaster Capitalism In A Christian Nation
There I was, in a pew at Cormorant Lutheran Church on Sunday morning, when I got the Christian view of acquiring wealth in a Christian country. A quote from the gospel of Matthew makes the point: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also….Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
When we RVed through the South for years, we never traveled on Sunday morning so we could watch the televangelists, mostly Southerners, weep, cry, wave their Bibles, and talk about sinning. Actually “Sunday Morning Live” was vastly more entertaining than “Saturday Night Live.” My all-time favorite is Jimmy Swaggart, swaggering up and down on the stage, shouting up to Heaven, waving his Bible. Occasionally he dropped to his knees with tears streaming down his face, looking toward the heavens, and cried, “I have sinned!” Poor Jimmy did some. He was finally caught laying hands on too many prostitutes he was trying to save from, well…something.
Pastor Paula White: “Donald Trump Was Chosen By God To Lead This Nation”
Evidently you can find support for anything you want to do in the Bible, whether it is to kill or to make a pile of dough. The idea of the prosperity gospel sprang from the New Thought movement in the 19th Century. Sometimes called the health and wealth gospel, it’s a religious belief supported in the Bible—someplace—that financial blessings and physical well-being are always the will of God, and that faith, positive speech, and donations for religious causes will increase one’s material wealth. There are many Southern pastors who “believe” in prosperity gospel, with some of them now personally worth many millions. Joel Osteen is worth $50 million, and his wife recently dropped her church duties to run a new business for the both of them. Creflo Dollar, magically named by his parents, is a prosperity gospeler who convinced his church board he needed an $85 million jet to conduct church business. Ever listen to millionaire Kenneth Copeland? And let us not forget millionaire Pat Robertson, a man of the cloth who loves cashmere. And I will always remember the Southern big-haired lady minister who was videoed preaching sermons as she rode a pontoon around the shores of a Florida lake.
This leads us to Pastor Paula White, the 51 year-old spiritual leader of Our Great Leader Donald Trump. She actually never graduated from a Bible school but was ordained by somebody anyway. Paula claims The Donald called her in 2011 to pray with him about running for president, and therefore also claims he is a born-again Christian because of her laying on of hands on him at that time. The thrice-married Paula seems to be the perfect spiritual leader for the thrice-married Donald. The very blonde Paula is currently married to a rock band musician 15 years her junior, and her favorite dress is a scarlet Oscar de la Renta sheath dress along with scarlet patent leather stilettos. She and Donald make a perfect pair. Although Trump still does not go to church, he says: ”she’s fantastic.” He has appointed her head of his evangelical advisory council. She claims she convinced him to run for president in 2015 at a meeting of televangelists at Trump Towers.
Read more: http://duluthreader.com/articles/2017/11/30/11741_all_about_disaster_capitalism_in_a_christian
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