The Church, All They Want Is Your Money

“Protestant piety in United States has had an often fulsome, occasionally fraught, relationship to the quest for material wealth, but never before has it transacted a vision of spiritually sanctioned prosperity on such a blunt pay-to-play basis on such a vast scale. In the not-so-distant past, Oral Roberts — the most prominent prosperity minister in the postwar era — was treated as a late-night TV punchline for mounting a bald fundraising pitch around the threat that the Lord would be calling Roberts home if he failed to meet his allotted quota of $8 million to rescue his eponymous Oklahoma-based university from a sea of red ink. Now, however, the link between the personal discipline exacted by one’s faith and the promised expansion of one’s bottom line is so casually reiterated in the evangelical world that it’s banal.”
 — An excerpt from Awl pal Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult is right here

for your perusal (and pre-order!).