© 2006, UrbisMedia
I would hazard the guess that the least evoked New Testament passage one is likely to hear these days, especially in those glitzy megachurches with preachers in Armani suits, is that of Christ throwing the money-changers out of the temple, or maybe that parable about the camel passing through the eye of a needle. Worldly riches and Christianity, long representative of different values, seem to go together like Christmas and Santa Claus.
I caught a radio evangelist in my car some years ago (it was the only station that would come in over the outer reaches in Interstate 5 at 3AM). It stuck in my mind that he was offering prayer handkerchiefs for listeners who made donations to his ministry at a certain level. Making a buck on Christ has never gone out of fashion and has grown, as of 2005, into an $8.6 billion business! Gullible people, and there are a lot of them, will grasp at anything they think has some holy or miraculous powers. (OK, Viagra isn’t a holy item, but you do hear more expressions of “Oh, my God!) The Roman Catholic church once did a rollicking business in relics, which was one of the things that helped prompt the Protestant Revolution that has spawned myriads of churches which are selling stuff like facsimile crucifixion nails. But relics are hard to come by these days. [1]
Long before Mel Gibson raked in hundreds of millions with his movie The Passion of the Christ,there was money in the faith business. After all, the money changers were in the temple back in the First Century. As far back as their were temples the best place for beggars to hang out was just outside their doors; the guilt over too much gelt always provoked the need to give a little back (to get through that eye of the needle). But for a long time the notion of getting rich and “saved” was played down.
Not any longer—Jesus wants you to get rich, they say, especially if you are in the Jesus business. And what a business it has become. Just about any commodity or service you can think of has been exploited for its faith-based sales value. There are Christian theme parks, Christian cruises, Christian car dealers, Christian banks, Christian dating services, Christian credit cards, Christian cookbooks and records and DVD’s, and, of course those Wal Marts, those gigantic emporiums of hand-waving, halleluiah, doin’ the wave for Jesus megachurches with Busby Berkeley production values and cute guys and hot chicks singing and dancing (“that’s right ZuZu, every time the cash register rings a preacher gets his blings”) [2] . And all to glorify the Lord, and a lot of it owned by some of the sleaziest con artists that ever played the game of eschatological terror. [3]
One sort of has to reach deep into that personal level of incredulity that allows the mind to process the election of George Bush to try to grasp what the hell these people think all of this has to do with the life of Christ and principle of Christianity as we know them from scripture. Religions have always been good at coming up with twisted and transmogrified versions of their own dogma when the sirens of profit wiggled their shapely behinds, but what Gospel of P. T. Barnum was able to conjure the bald-faced absurdity, if not—dare I use the word— heresy of what this corporatized-Christianity hath rendered. Did Jesus really invoice that couple at Cana for the wine, or charge the multitudes by the loaf and fish? If I have nudged the borders of blasphemy with my irreverent graphics and my satirical apostasy, I have not even come close to the true outrage that those who hypocritically call themselves Christians commit every time they reach into somebody’s wallet in the name of Christ.
The “customer” base for this burgeoning evangelical emporium has been swelled largely by the middle classes of the baby-boom generation, a cohort inured to consumption, glitz and, while much preoccupied with their corporeal tanned, worked-out, and nipped-tucked bods, seem to have grown concerned about the “quality” of their afterlives. The enormous popularity of those “Left Behind” books have proven that there is always a lot of profit in prophecy, $650million worth of profit. [4] And the great thing about the Rapture? Well, it seems that all that gym work and plastic surgery won’t be wasted; you’ll be bodily hauled up to heaven with those ripped abs and sculpted noses as is.
Boomers are, of course, the cash cows that every secular evangelist of SUVs, Carnival Cruises, and other purveyors of you-can’t-take-it-with-you crap are stalking. But their willingness to “invest” in the heavenly pay-off has surprised even the most cynical capitalists. It’s an irresistible market, and if the evangelist-entrepreneur has to stretch a few Christian principles to the breaking point to grab a buck along the way, there’s always that most alluring precept of Christianity—forgiveness.
So, if you happen to be forgiven but not fit, there’s even a Christian diet book titled What Would Jesus Eat? to prove that anything is fair game in using your lord and savior to make that cash register go ka-ching, ka-ching like those offertory bells at mass. But even if the author’s title was rhetorical, I think the answer would be, a loaf and a fish (preferably salmon, baked, with a little butter and lemon). Then Jesus might just get up from the table and throw his disrespectful, greedy ass out of his temple—again.
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©2006, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 3.8.2006)
[1] Not that you can be certain that some of the (mostly) body parts of saints, or bits of the true cross, or shrouds and other stuff, are genuine. There’s probably enough wood that has been passed off as slivers from the “true cross” to build a good size residential subdivision.
[2] Sorry about this cinematic allusion, I just couldn’t resist it. If for some reason you didn’t catch one of the most memorable lines in filmdom you must have been in a coma through the last forty Christmas seasons. It’s the last line of dialogue in Frank Capra’s durable It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Rent it, or wait for Christmas.
[3] Think this is hyperbole? Have a look.
[4] The Economist , 3 December 2005, P. 61. And evangelist preacher Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, is the best-selling hardcover book in American history, with more than 25million copies sold.