>> "blessed" is the name of the book and a history of the american prosperity gospel is the subtitle. duke university professor of religion kate bowler is the other. for faster bowler what is the prosperity gospel? >> it's a pentecostalism that developed a special bouquet played for how faith reaches out into the invisible and brings that material things. >> host: but his pentecostal? >> guest: pentecostalism is a movement from the 20 century

kind of rough and tumble and openness is virtual gift that usually centers on the power of god to be spoken to what they call spiritual tone but it's a science and wonder at how god is just around the corner. you just have to keep your eyes open. the prosperity gospel is one version that looks at slightly different things in pentecostalism. please go when you things does prosperity mean wealth if you follow this way? >> guest: pentecostals were material to match. they said the body was god's home. it was one of the most profoundly american things you could say. you are not an individual do-it-yourself bootstrap or page you are someone who can be a manifestation of god's very presence. the prosperity gospel to go to say this can be interpreted more concretely and not just in your house which has been a store

christian tenets but also your finances and developed a vocabulary to help christians think through every detail. >> host: is this uniquely american? >> guest: i think in some ways it's a kind of indigenous american gospel. it's rugged individualism. it is supernatural bootstrap. it has an incredibly high anthropology and there is no meeting a sense of what people can do. there is really no nation that is more confident in what they can accomplish than this one. >> host: who are some of the preachers of the prosperity gospel and do they call it the prosperity gospel? >> guest: some of the preachers i would include that are popular joel osteen t.d. jakes joyce meyer creflo dollar frederick price. really everywhere there is a megachurch and a local celebrity you will find a prosperity

preacher but the term is controversial. that was kind of the burden of writing this book. how do you bring people and that naturally resist that kind of label? hosted at some of the ministers participate in your book? >> guest: they did. they manage to visit a quarter of all of what i identified as prosperity megachurches, interviewed someone representing the ministry from almost every major ministry. i went to every major conference. i was the annoying person pressed up against the glass at every conference hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on. >> host: what did you hear? what kind of message are these churches preaching? >> guest: i think what surprised me the most was it wasn't so much about money. i thought money was its most surprising claim. surely the gospel is about money but what i found is people didn't talk about money barely as much as i expected them to.

they expect that they had was that every special detail was given god's attention not just a parking space order mentality that their budget, their families, their marriages, their happiness, their promotions every little part of their life were worthy of spiritual attention. >> host: and what does that have to do with prosperity? is up more than just wealth prosperity? >> guest: they call it a whole life prosperity and i guess i mean in theological terms when you say something like critics will call it a overly realized eschatology meaning we are seeing more of the presence of the kingdom of god here on earth when traditionally christians have thought that most of the good stuff happens after we die. >> host: kate bowler isn't in the bible and i'm paraphrasing but what god gives -- what you give god gives back

tenfold. hope hope. >> guest: most of the hard numbers from parts of covenant theology there are a few concrete members but people are looking, the desire for numbers is mostly a desire to look for spiritual formula. where can we find a key that unlocks god and so where there is a number in revelation and some of it talk with relation they will seek out for ms. but for the most part have tried to shy away from numbers in part because there's a greater sense that we actually do live in a -- >> host: what megachurches? >> guest: mega-churches were easier because there was r.d. database of 1500 or so

mega-churches that exists in the country so what i could do then was to go through every single one and every single web site and pull them out and make my own list based on shared rhetoric shared institutional connection. they tend to go to the same conferences get accredited honorary doctorates from this game school. i figured that if they look and talk and work like a prosperity document in this case than i can want them together great. >> host: to the mega-churches become mega-churches because they preach this prosperity gospel? >> guest: it's an excellent question. the relationship to fund-raising and a large church seemed to be kind of natural allies in many senses. we'll sometimes find a smaller church who takes on the prosperity theology and becomes a prosperity megachurch but we shouldn't confuse mega-churches as the prosperity gospel. there are 1600 or so make a churches in the country and only

a minority of them are prosperity megachurches. what is most unusual about them though is that dominate the upper tier of churches. the biggest of the big churches in the country preach a message and their influence is enormous. they could be thought of as the top of a pyramid where they have all sorts of people under them that preach a similar message that look to them for inspiration so there message goes far beyond what you might expect a local preacher to do. >> host: lakewood church joel osteen self-reported 58,000 average weekly attendance. texas world changers ministries. creflo dollar, 30,000 in college park georgia. the pottery house t.d. jakes 30,000, dallas texas. are those prosperity gospel churches? >> guest: absolutely. it's a helpful shorthand to where to find these churches. all prosperity churches and most of them omit the top nifty of

the largest churches in the country. >> host: all tax-exempt? >> guest: they are entrepreneurial in spirit. the churches themselves are tax-exempt but what they specifically do is if they are famous there is a wing. t.d. jakes has enterprises and he's a great example because he's a producer and probably a writer a film writer i mean it has all kinds of fingers and the pot. >> host: that is the prophesied or the taxable side? >> guest: that's right. they will say don't look at me necessarily as an example of someone taking money out of it coffer. most of my money comes from this other wing and that is sometimes true for some it is less true for others. they don't really have to justify how much money they make him part to cuss at the theological structure of the movement.

i can show you what i did and more is more and i can shape the way. >> host: somebody who spoke at jeb bush's inaugural kirby john caldwell. 14,000 attendants, houston texas. >> guest: one of the big surprises of the prosperity movement and why it took so long to write this book book is in order to demonstrate how widespread it is we have to take into account not just the stereotypical prosperity of the churches which are nondenominational but some of the denominational ones that in almost every major american denomination we find at least one prosperity megachurch so that could include the united methodists, adorable as they are, the disciple of christ. we are just shy of a prosperity megachurch somewhere out there. >> host: when did this prosperity gospel, well first of all is there a political philosophy to these churches?

do they have politics? >> guest: they do but it's a subset. we think of them as having different niche is. you are the spiritual warfare guy. you are the prophecy lady. you are the politics dude so this we will find john hagee and broad parsley that there'll be a subset that overlaps with these christian right. for the most part they don't need to talk nuts and bolts with politics because god has offered them in and run our round it's so what they need to do is get serious about their faith and doors will open. >> host: when did this prosperity gospel started to movement? >> guest: i think the beginning of the message in the post-war revival in 1950s of these are pentecostal independent tenth revivalist. these are the guys that show up in small towns put up giant campus cathedrals and attract hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. in the post-war years these have traditionally been healers so someone like oral roberts within already in his right hand.

these were usually people who keep people came to be healed from all kinds of diseases. after world war ii we saw the number of diseases that needed to be healed in this way really were mass vaccinations. there was a sense that those weren't the things we needed from preacher so the developing confidence that they have a new vocabulary that springs up of miraculous billfold set multiplied or seed faces a word that comes into terms. it's the idea that your money is not just a concrete thing. it's a representation of what could happen if you so into my ministry. because this is good soil that will then multiply back to you. this is all very different than language that was quite discreet and concrete. 10% of what you have party earned, they asked people to

give an order to receive. money multiplies in an unseen spiritual universe. this was absolutely innovative. >> host: jim and tammy fay baker. where they prosperitprosperit y gospel ministers? >> guest: they were and they were the perfect embodiment of it. i like writing about the fact that they started a kind of christian wonderland instead of a church. they had a very see what god can do playful attitude and their theme was two seconds away from bursting into song at all times. he always had a powder blue suit and a heavy gold watch and a kind of carnival like atmosphere in her own life and marriage. as of that they were magnetic and so fun to watch and it kind of had a who knows, let's throw open the door spiritually and see what god brings in. >> who do these ministers appealed to? >> well we know there has been

good date on that. there are pretty meager resources for us to drone. we know in the 80s those televangelist like jim and tammy fay baker were very attracted to this oversight, the elderly, the at-home viewers but now we can see with a megachurch phenomenon this is a young middle-class phenomenon. i really think that this is a indigent poor reaching out their last penny to drop into the coffer. this is the kind of thing that an aspirational middle-class audience is going see weekly in order to get practical resources and how to think about their jobs and their marriages in their parenting as spiritual. >> host: white, black and latino? >> guest: latino prosperity megachurches it's overwhelming how many have started in the last 10 years. latino megachurches are the new

fresh face on the scene because before they have been largely constrained to immigrant resources, like small churches with you means but now they are like everybody else. they have their own tv shoes -- tv shows and their own media platforms. one of the offshoots for example robert schuler's church the christian cathedral. that was a fabulous incarnation of prosperity. anytime you have a church with a river i feel like you have a prosperity gospel. but the latino smaller church that became an offshoot called favored day, favored day in church was a prosperity offshoot and they have a whole host, between three and 5000 weekly attenders to a church like that. >> host: you teach religion and did. what do you teach? >> guest: i teach american religious history create. >> host: what is your religious background? >> guest: i come from a

nondenominational mennonite background. >> host: do you consider yourself a christian? >> guest: i do. >> host: when you look at these megachurches what appeals to you? >> guest: i do find sometimes, i guess a sense of expectancy and possibility. such a departure from a lot of the mainline churches where i go where they expect to see an excellent program look how how robust our outreach is in terms of prentice -- prison ministry ministry. they're concrete impractical and i love the excitement. i love the enthusiasm. i love the intense spiritualizing of details. he gives dignity to every person that really impressed me. >> host: what does not appeal to you? >> guest: i think i experience sometimes based on where he sits when i go to these churches. when i'm sitting near the choir i feel inspirational. the roads are beautiful and the hands are wailing and it's an

optimally beautiful thing but if i said in a the wheelchair section i feel that i've sometimes see people that are so sure that their faith has let them down and that their bodies are failing them and they have an experience of spiritual inadequacy because they are not yet healed and not yet rich. i want basically a place where people receive comfort, that we are told not quite yet. that is not ours the message they are getting. >> host: the students at the divinity school here at duke today at meyer and aspire to the mega-church pastors? >> guest: for the most part they are lovely methodists of a friday said they are largely -- there the mainline problems. heavy mortgage churches that

they can no longer afford so they are struggling with their own questions of prosperity gospel. what happens if they can prove in their ministries that things will become bigger and better? what would a decline look like in the rhetoric of faithfulness? i think it's a real challenge for berlin. >> host: the mega-churches are growing aren't they? >> guest: they are. around every urban metropolis. they are wide open spiritual market but they really appeal to a certain kind of preacher. you have to be wildly charismatic. you have to have a fabulous head of hair and you have to have an infectious sense that things will always get better. people are rarely going to be in a church where they kids aren't as smart. and americans want to hear that things are going to be better tomorrow and they will avoid the churches that don't. >> host: do politicians, are they drawn to these large congregations all in one place?

>> guest: absolutely. we see it in a battleground they show up whenever there is a battleground this day. latino churches for example in florida are extremely popular. in a swing state they can be come an incredibly effective way of most light -- mobilizing people. it's easier some time to tell what the prosperity megachurches are not. vermont for example. the northeast is not fertile ground and neither is the west where there are mormons. we typically find very few. there are very few prosperity megachurches. >> host: why? >> guest: i think it's in part because of demographics, urban populations. they really put churches like that at the crossroads of major highways. so where we find big open spaces

with major highways and a huge sprawling population albeit almost all sun belt cities those are going to be fabulously fertile ground. also just places where people are on the move. so, places where hispanic immigration is on the rise. that's a great -- i can tell people right now where they should plant churches and where they're likely to grow in the next five years but it's likely about immigration population density and major highways. >> host: here in north carolina here in durham and the mega-churches in this area? >> guest: sure, there are mega-churches. there is one prosperity megachurch in the area, world overcomer's i think. there's one from the 1980s. it was kind of an amazing story. one of the few prosperity

megachurches that wasn't really urban. it was in a town that had, that the church had more people than the time it was in. they had the kind if jim and tammy fay appeal for they had matching spark lang suits and exciting attitude. >> host: what is the difference between a mega-church and a prosperity megachurch? are they preaching different gospels? >> guest: mega-churches have the reputation for being nondenominational, optimistic, things that can get better media savvy but for the most part mega-churches and numbers wise, many if not most are nondenomination and typically small. most mega-churches are barely hitting that threshold of 2000 to 2500. prosperity megachurches on the other hand, i look for four things. i look for faith, a sense that

faith is not just hope or trust. it's actually spiritual power that is released by believers. it's that invisible thing that goes out into the universe and draws back lessons. how do you know your faith is working? you look for health and wealth. there are a lot of pentecostal churches that will preach health but you are only a prosperity church if you preach both in the last is victory. victory is the thing that will put an eagle or a spinning globe on every logo. it's the thing that convinces people that things are just about to get better, chin up, eyes on the horizon. if you chose things that would separate a prosperity megachurch from an act average mega-church. >> host: how a important our spouse's? >> guest: they are the primary litmus test of whether the prosperity gospel is working. no one wants to csa at dowdy man standing alone at the pulpit. what they want is this beautiful lawns or at least voluminously

haired wife standing beside him. it's also a great way to divide the ministry into missions. the women can do women and children and the men can do the spiritual heavy lifting of the main prosperity work. that became very popular in the 1980s and in all churches today. >> host: to the ministers of these prosperity megachurches flaunt their wealth? >> guest: absolutely. they will do it in more or less tasteful ways. i.b. hilliard recently had some flak for advertising that his helicopter needed blades and asking people to donate. i think the number was $52 per person in order to supply more for that ministry. that struck people as slightly too much but you have to really really -- that just goes to show you just how far they can go in order to demonstrate that their lives are marked by god's favor.

>> host: kates bowler sunday morning joel osteen on for a half an hour, just to service. what is a full lakewood church service like? >> guest: will start with some very uplifting music via a grammy award-winning singer-songwriter. you will have some gentle fog that is maybe the holy spirit coming down. it will have at least 20 people greeting you before you make your way from a concrete perky mason to the main sanctuary and a gorgeous enormous building. these buildings are designed to be the most beautiful piece -- places that people are every week. truth and beauty has been the main appeal of the christian message. >> host: how long does the service last? >> guest: so you'll have about 20 minutes or so of music and then a mini-tidings service done by victoria osteen who asks people to give with particular

understandings of you give and god will reward you with more. then the buckets come out and then the buckets go away and joel osteen will come on and he will preach for a little less than half an hour. then a spiritual song roundup investor service. they are really quite efficient. i went to their good friday service. it was in part because they couldn't find any other good friday service at a prosperity megachurch in the houston area which initially surprised me. if you really think it through they don't need good friday as much as they need easter. what would have good friday service look like? joyfully happy good friday at least 15 times on my lan. they had kind of a living zoo unveiled lamb. by the third song jesus had been been -- had died but was

resurrected. quite early on in the service which shows you how quickly they want to rush to the end. they really want to rush to the good stuff that shows you that jesus does the work so you get the lessons that god wants to show on you. >> host: a lot of the mainline churches some of their missions like like he you said outreach food banks shut-ins etc.. to the prosperity churches have those programs as well? >> guest: they do and here we can see a think a spectrum of approaches. hard to prosperity is an instantaneous you of the relationship between faith and reward. you have faith, you will find yourself almost insane painlessly heal than the coffers will begin to be filled. a soft prosperity is going to have a more roundabout gentler appraisal of how the relationship works between faith and the reward. i find it hard prosperity this hard prosperity there's more emphasis on individual social services, so this will be rather

than advocating for example for educational reform they will give a kid to school bag filled with school supplies so something catered towards individuals at the family level. it's little more open especially among black churches more open to housing, prison reform, wider macro level structural. for the most part the prosperity gospel tilts away from institutions because god has 30 given you everything you need you to solve the problems. >> host: kate bowler what has been the reaction of some of the mega-church members to your book "blessed"? >> guest: i hope that there has been some level of recognition that those are categories that they use and hold dear. i think there will always be worried that anyone who has added the word gospel, prosperity before the word is

naturally skeptical of it but for the most part the criticism i have gotten is that i'm too nice. i would rather have that i think that that's something that people don't recognize of themselves. >> host: who says you are too nice? >> guest: almost everyone. evangelicals are not thrilled with me. one called the dangerous for fear that people will read the book and accidentally convert. i just think it's a work of history. charity and humorous our goal in trying to present things in a way that people will recognize. >> host: are these churches not evangelical? >> guest: the founders of pentecostal or quite porous so we have some that start with pentecostal evangelical but more are straight up evangelical. they wouldn't necessarily espouse spiritual gift as a main part of their theology. i think that's a new frontier for the prosperity gospel. white evangelicalism looks so much like prosperity gospel

optimism that it will find it hard to distinguish itself. >> our prosperity churches considered anti-intellectual by some? >> guest: yes, i think they are in part because they don't want to play by the same rules. they don't want to go to the same schools are subject themselves to the same kinds of i guess historical debates on where they fall. you should think of them as nationally restoration lists of people who immediately forget their history to think about god's revelation is always falling afresh. if you ask up prosperity preacher where does the message come from, you ask a presbyterian and they will know. they will say it came to mean a dream dream or god spoke to me. it's an erasure of history and in that moment it allows them to have all kinds of creativity. bennie hinn early on got into a fair amount of trouble with

theology creativity it which open revelation led him to wonder if each member of the trinity have their own trinity. that came up benign and it became awkward. it was in his book good morning spirit which sold many copies so in some sense he walked at bat but he immediately felt like people were laughing at him and it'd just been kind of what he wanted as a playful moment other people thought of as not following the sort of rules of orthodoxy. >> host: any of these church ideas past 30 gospel ideas been exported to canada, europe? >> guest: absolute and one of the genus levels of the prosperity gospel is when you ask is this an american phenomenon it's hard to tell because almost immediately send indigent eyes. it takes on a local form almost innately. there's a canadian version.

it's a little more staid. hands are lower, left laughing, a little dancing. it's fabulously adaptable so a nigerian prosperity gospel there is ukrainian prosperity gospel and in english prosperity gospel and a filipino 30 gospel that is largely catholic. it's wonderfully variable. >> host: kate bowler is a professor of religion at due to the profanity school. she is the author of this book "blessed" a history of the american prosperity gospel published by oxford. next on booktv president jimmy carter talks about human rights abuses against women around the world and discusses what can be done about the problem.