Is it possible that Joel Osteen and T. D. Jakes caused the housing crisis that lead to last fall's economic collapse? Well, maybe they didn't cause it, but they very well may have contributed to it, according to this article by Hanna Rosin in the newest issue of The Atlantic.

Not that Rosin implicates Osteen or Jakes directly. Rather, she weaves together a compelling narrative of the way in which the preaching of what is sometimes called "the prosperity gospel" primed many poor people over the last decade to be willing targets for the sub-prime mortgage industry. Prosperity preachers told their congregations that God wanted them to be rich, that he was going to bless them with large houses and expensive cars. So when the bankers came and offered them houses they couldn't possibly afford, they assumed God's promises were coming to fruition.

The prosperity gospel is a strain of theology that has become popular in certain segments of the pentecostal movement. The basic message is that God wants us to be happy, that wealth and prosperity are signs of God's favor, and that we need to take risks in order to receive God's beneficence. God doesn't like wimps, at least when it comes to our pocketbooks. This translates into taking out impossible loans, buying unnecessary and unaffordable luxuries, and of course giving as much money as humanly possible to the church.

I knew that this trend was popular, but I didn't realize until reading this article just how popular. According to Rosin, the majority of churches in the United States with membership at 5000 or more preach this message. According to Pew survey statistics, "73 percent of all religious Latinos in the United States agreed with the statement: 'God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith.'" Similar statistics uphold for other demographic groups.

It's easy to see how such a view of the world could easilly translate into economic chaos. And Rosin shows that the very regions hardest hit by the housing crisis are the ones in which prosperity gospel driven churches are growing the fastest. But what makes the story turn from unfortunate to almost criminal is the fact that in many cases banks were actually working with churches, offering seminars for poor people that were essentially get rich quick schemes. In some cases, the line between pastor and banker was blurred completely. Pastor Fernando Garay, whom Rosin follows as an example throughout the piece, is both a pastor and a loan officer for two different mortgage companies, preaching to the congregation on Sunday and then signing away their futures on Monday morning.

It's easy to see why this sort of message would be appealing, particularly to poor people. I've never been poor, but I can imagine that a message that sounds so positive and has such a concrete pay-off would be especially seductive if I was consistently caught between an economic rock and a hard place. Seductive, and maybe even a little empowering. But decidedly anti-Christian.

One of the things I always find fascinating about listening to guys like Osteen and Jakes--who are, to be charitable, preaching a much less strident form of the prosperity gospel than Garay--is how little reference they make to the actual example of Jesus. Very little scripture is quoted in general in their sermons, but almost no reference is made to Jesus except when quoting the parable of the talents, out of context, to support the notion that Jesus would like all of his followers to be mega-millionaires. They never mention the fact that Jesus was poor. They never mention Jesus' difficult teachings about the cost of discipleship. They certainly never mention the cross. H. R. Niebuhr's great line about liberal theology of the early twentieth century could easily be applied to the prosperity gospel. In Niebuhr's words, what these preachers are selling is the story of "a God without wrath [who] brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."

For a pastor like me, there are many conclusions that could be drawn from this story. I'm tempted to say that this is evidence that bigger is not always better in terms of church size. And I do think there's a certain truth to the idea that it's easier to sell a message that says "Follow God and all your wildest dreams will come true" than to ask people, as Our Lord does, to take up their cross and follow Him. But that can also be a cop out, used to justify low attendance figures and a certain comfortable arrogance about how "the world" just doesn't get it. Big crowds don't prove that a church is filled with the Holy Spirit, but it seems to me that a complete lack of people isn't exactly a sign of health.

If anything, I think the lesson I take away from this whole affair is just how important it is for traditional Christians to preach the gospel to the world, in both our words and in our lives. People can't be taken in so easily by false gospels if they've heard the truth proclaimed and seen it lived. And it's heartbreaking that the kind of meaning that people could find in their suffering understood through the cross is being denied to them by the very people whom they trust to teach them about Jesus. Every time I hear the story of one of these prosperity gospel churches exploding with members, or I see one of these self-helpy books on the shelf, I'm convicted that I should and could be doing so much more to proclaim the truth than I am. Because the truth is that God does want to bless us, all of us, but not with houses or riches. God doesn't give us credit cards and fancy cars and diamond rings, all of which will one day pass away, just as we will. God gives us the gift of Himself in the person of His Son, which is a gift that will never be exhausted.