There has been much written about what is termed the religious right in the United States in recent years, with a particular emphasis on its relationship to the Republican Party. Beginning in the 1980s with the excellent analysis of sociologist Sara Diamond, those on the left began to take seriously the influence that the religious right had influencing public policy. Sarah Posner's recent book, God's Profits continues this important analysis.
Posner's book looks at the current manifestations of apocalyptic teaching, also known as End Times teaching. The popular San Antonio TV evangelist John Hagee best represents the belief that we are living in the last days. Hagee is particularly influential with his active support of the state of Israel and his constant pressuring of US politicians to maintain that support. During the 2006 Israeli attack on Lebanon, Hagee even advocated that Israel or the US bomb Iran as a way of bringing about the Apocalypse.
While Posner devotes a chapter to the religious right's influence on US foreign policy, the bulk of the book deals with what she calls the Prosperity Gospel movement. This movement believes that the Christian god wants believers to be materially wealthy and in fact, if they are wealthy, that is a sign of their faith in the divine. This is not necessarily a new belief, since the Protestant theologian John Calvin promoted a similar doctrine centuries ago with an emphasis on hard work that resulted in wealth. With the Prosperity Gospel movement less emphasis is put on hard work and more on belief and tithing. If you give a significant portion of your earnings to the church it will come back to you many times over is what this new movement preaches.
Some of the leaders of this movement are Hagee, Kenneth Copeland, and Rod Parsley. Parsley is probably not as familiar to many as Hagee and Copeland, but his influence is just as profound, particularly through his World Harvest Church. Parsley has perfected the art of convincing poor and working class believers into giving over what little money they have to keep Parsley living a life of private jets, multiple houses, and regular vacations in the most expensive tourist locations world wide. Posner does a good job of profiling people who have been bankrupted by the Prosperity Gospel preachers and even provides some documentation of overseas charity scams that some of these leaders have engaged in. The difficulty always lies with accountability since most religious organizations are tax-exempt, which makes it harder to track funding.
While this book provides some interesting insights into the Prosperity Gospel movement, it does not adequately address its relationship to the Republican Party. Posner does look at some of the key people in this movement who have developed relationships with the Bush administration, but the author does not spend adequate time exploring these relationships or how "values voters" end up influencing elections. Despite its shortcomings, God's Profits is a valuable resource for those seeking to understand current trends within the religious right in the US.
Sarah Posner, God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, (Polipoint Press, 2008).
