Martin Luther, founder of Lutheranism, was the first to breakaway from the original mega Church (catholic). One can kinda compare Osteen and prosperity gospel to the Pope's and early Church.
Unfortunately since Luther and his theses (complaints) didn't get much publicity, a bunch of others broke away (Baptists n such), and prosperity gospel has really taken off.
Televangelism is very lucrative but so was selling indulgences or lambs for sacrifice.
JB, I believe that religion is at the base of much of the bad behavior in the world.
It offers another chance after we mess up the world we currently live in.
As to the financial end, I have a distant relative who was a very high profile evangelist. He fell about the same time as the PTL debacle, but has come back to some extent. I wouldn't trust this guy in an outhouse with a muzzle on. He was a despicable child, and his actions as an adult have ranged from hurtful to downright weird. There is no telling how much well intended money he has wasted, but it's a lot.
At the other end of the spectrum are the honest, well meaning ministers. I respect their intent, but decry their allegiance to something that has generated so much violence and fear for so many years. Fear of God is a damned <sorry> poor reason to go to church, and that is a primary motivator for many worshipers.
Jesus of Nazareth was a guy who threw some pretty tough pawnbrokers out of the Temple. This needs, at the very least, to be what happens to the big money churches. (rant to be continued for the rest of my life)
If you haven't already inferred this, I despise all things religious. Not all things spiritual. That's very different.
It offers another chance after we mess up the world we currently live in.
As to the financial end, I have a distant relative who was a very high profile evangelist. He fell about the same time as the PTL debacle, but has come back to some extent. I wouldn't trust this guy in an outhouse with a muzzle on. He was a despicable child, and his actions as an adult have ranged from hurtful to downright weird. There is no telling how much well intended money he has wasted, but it's a lot.
At the other end of the spectrum are the honest, well meaning ministers. I respect their intent, but decry their allegiance to something that has generated so much violence and fear for so many years. Fear of God is a damned <sorry> poor reason to go to church, and that is a primary motivator for many worshipers.
Jesus of Nazareth was a guy who threw some pretty tough pawnbrokers out of the Temple. This needs, at the very least, to be what happens to the big money churches. (rant to be continued for the rest of my life)
If you haven't already inferred this, I despise all things religious. Not all things spiritual. That's very different.
I saw an engineering report one time about how the praying hands at Oral Roberts University came to be.
The sculptor made them individually, but on the site, they had to be upright and together. On the trucks they were horizontal.
They used a crane to set them off, and ordered another crane thinking they needed two to keep them from camming over center line, and breaking the fingers. Engineers spent hours discussing how they could do that.
A 10 year neighbor hood kid solved it.
He walked between them, flipped a quarter into the air, and the hands came together with no damage, capturing the quarter.
The quarter is still there from what I hear.....
(another parable from dennishoddy) Chapter....
The sculptor made them individually, but on the site, they had to be upright and together. On the trucks they were horizontal.
They used a crane to set them off, and ordered another crane thinking they needed two to keep them from camming over center line, and breaking the fingers. Engineers spent hours discussing how they could do that.
A 10 year neighbor hood kid solved it.
He walked between them, flipped a quarter into the air, and the hands came together with no damage, capturing the quarter.
The quarter is still there from what I hear.....
(another parable from dennishoddy) Chapter....
Criticalbass can say the most outlandish things in reasonable language. I need to learn to do that .
The Christian Gospels (and the letters and all other parts) clearly show that God recognizes our need for material sufficiency but I strongly suspect that what we, modern Americans or maybe 1st world folks in general, consider "sufficient" is well beyond what God considers necessary or good. Wealth is not forbidden per se but its purpose is to enable the wealthy Christian to help others not merely to store the kind of riches that will decay - that kind of wealth just doesn't matter in the long run.
That's an old wive's tale. They errected the ORU hands using a crane and there was no 10 year old with a quarter. As with all legends, there are elements of truth. Because of the asymmetric distribution of weight in the sculpture, they could not use just a single crane to get the hands up and into position so they had to work through a number of different solutions including adding ballast to get the hands to sit level to be attached to the pedestal. Ultimately the crane operator had a great idea. He raised the hook directly above the finger ends and afixed a 20 dollar bill to it. Miraculously the hands reached for the 20 and they were able to get the statue into place.
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