it really isn't it if you're working 37 hours a week at $12 an hour, we should be tight but the quality of the job and whether or not it's allowing people to meet th their needs to understand that nuclear. a job is done this are a plus. if your 27 and you are unemployed or you're not even in the workforce, you're trying to create a business, that's probably a goo good thing. none of that we would be able to discuss constructively with the current framework. d. get rid of these numbers? they offer a pattern as to what's going on in the world, at a much looser one and a module let's use one but we have massive information in a big data world at our fingertips that we can use really, really constructively if we allow ourselves house of representatives numbers seem to be the bottom line. thank you so much for being with us today. appreciate it. ..

>> there's no question that congress routinely and administrations routinely don't speak the truth to the american public. that's not just inaccuracies in terms of the affordable health care act would do. it is the absence of speaking the truth about where we are. where are we quiet we are now at

a standard of living the same as what we had any teen 88. we now have, per family, unfunded obligations in. dad of $1.1 million per family. that needs to be spoken as we can build a context for the test things that are going to come. the biggest problem i see with congress' denial of reality. you can still be a good person and deny reality. we all have flaws that we don't deny reality and as in our lives every day because we don't want to face them. the fact is we have had the leadership in a long time. that would stand up and tell the truth and the american public about the situation we find ourselves in. you can debate what caused it. i will live out my idea what caused them.

>> career, politics and reasons for retirement from the senate at the end of the session here tonight at 8:00 these stands q&a. >> you are watching the tv. next, an interview with kate bowler about her book "blessed." she looks at the long history depressed or the gospel in the united states and profiles for her to cost the preachers like joel osteen, t.d. jakes and joyce meyer. this interview was recorded at the washington duke and in durham, north carolina. it is part of the tvs college series. >> "blessed" is the name of the book. "blessed: a history of the american prosperity gospel." duke university professor of religion, kate bowler is the author. professor bowler, what is the prosperity gospel?

>> it developed a special vocabulary for how exactly faith reaches out and brings back material things. >> host: what is pentecostal? >> guest: pentecostalism is a movement that sprang up in the early 20th century, kind of rough-and-tumble. openness and spiritual guests on the power of god spoken through glossolalia. it's really a science and wonder that god is around the corner. the prosperity gospel books for different things. poster when you say things, this dirty cost both meanwhile if you follow this way? >> guest: pentecostals are material, too. he was one of the most profoundly american things you can say.

so the prosperity gospel took that to say so the more concretely. every detail in my life is actually proof god was there. >> host: is this uniquely american? >> guest: in some ways it's an indigenous american fastball. it has an incredible high anthropology and there's no meaning kind of sensible people can do. and there's no nation that seems more confident in what they can accomplish. postcode or some of the preachers of the press or to gospel into a call at gospel? >> guest: yeah, that such a tough question. some of the most popular are

joel osteen, t.d. jakes, joyce meyer, frederick price. everywhere there is to make a church and local celebrity you will find press dirty preacher. no one wants to be called a prosperity preacher. how do you want people and that would naturally resist that kind of label? >> guest: to some of those participate in the book? >> guest: dates it. i managed to visit a quarter of prosperity churches. i interview someone representing the ministry. i went to every major conference. i was the annoying person pressed up against the glass at every conference hoping to get a glimpse of what was going on. >> host: what did you hear? what kind of message are these churches preaching? >> guest: was surprised me the most was it wasn't so much about money. at that naturally prosperity

cost full is one of the most surprising claims. surely this is a gospel about money. but i found was people didn't talk about many nearly as much as i acted into. the kind of excitement they had was that every special detail was given god's attention. not just the kind of god in every empty parking space sentimentality, but their budgets, families, and marriage is, their happiness, their promotion that every little part of their lives were worthy of spiritual attention. >> host: what does that have to do is prosperity? is the more than wealth prosperity? >> guest: they would call it a holy prosperity. in theological terms with a something like critics would call it a more overly realized eschatology meaning we'll see more of the presence of the kingdom of god here on earth were traditionally christian set

that most of the good stuff happens after we die. >> host: kate bowler, i'm paraphrasing, but what you give, god gives back tenfold. >> guest: this search for the numbers is a tricky one. most of the hard numbers people get from teasing apart the covenant theology throughout the old testament. it's a few concrete numbers. threes come the sentence. under his. that people are looking -- the desire for numbers is most a desire to look for a spiritual formula. what is that? where can we find the key that unlocks cards being? where there is the number of revelation, the literature, they will try to find and tease out for me last. for the most part, prosperity preachers or try to shy away from numbers. in part because there is a greater sin that the theology says more begets more common than we do live in a relatively

concrete financial universe and they can't promise everyone 100 fold on every return. >> host: by mega-churches? >> guest: mega-churches are easier because there's ardea database at the 1600 or so churches that exist in the country. what i could do was hope for every single one in every website and pull them out of make my own list based on shared rhetoric from the shared touche no connections. they tend a garden thing, and this comic at accredited, honorary doctorates from the same schools. i figure if they look and talk and walk like a prosperity documents case, then i can lump them together on my own. >> host: took the mega-churches become mega-churches because they preach this prosperity gospel? >> guest: it's an excellent question. the relationship between fundraising and a large church had seen to be kind of natural allies in many dances. we will sometimes find a smaller church should take unimpressed

dirty theology and so it becomes a prosperity mega church. we shouldn't confuse mega-churches in the prosperity gospel. their 1600 or so mega-churches in the country and only a minority are prosperity mega churches. what's most unusual though is that they really dominate the upper tier of churches. the biggest of the big churches in the country preaching message and their influence is enormous. they can be thought of sort of like the top of a feudal pyramid, where they have a service to people under them the election conference oration at the message spread far beyond what you might expect a local preacher could do. >> host: lakewood church, self-reported thousand. that's an average weekly attendance? crop flow dollar. 30,000 college per, georgia. the potters has td jakes, 37, dallas texas.

by this prosperity churches? >> guest: absolutely. any of the ones i listed in the appendices as a kind of helpful shorthand to redefine these churches are all prosperity churches and most of them make the top 50 of the largest churches in the country. >> host: all tax-exempt? >> guest: they are entrepreneurial in. the churches themselves are tax-exempt. tgg enterprises and he's agreed it ample because he's the producer, probably a writer, and that's all kinds of fingers and from pot. both they don't like it may necessarily a example of someone who's taking the money out of the coffers. i make most of my money from this other wing. that is sometimes true for some and less true for others.

they don't really have to justify how much money they make in part because of the theological infrastructure of the movement. i have to say if i did it and i can show you how to do it too. i can show you the way. >> host: somebody who spoke at present bush is inaugural, kirby john caldwell, windsor village united methodist church, 14,000 attendance, houston, texas. >> host: why it took me so long to write this book is in order to demonstrate how widespread it is, we have to take into account not just the stereotypical press or to make a churches which are nondenominational, to some of the denominational one that in almost every major american denomination we find at least one prosperity mega church. that could include the united methodist, it's adorable if they are, disciples of christ. we are just shy of a presbyterian mega-church.

i'm sure somewhere out there. >> host: wind of this prosperity gospel -- first of all, is very political philosophy? to the top politics? >> guest: they do, but it's a subset. we think of them as having different niche is. or the spiritual wear for a guy coming or the prophecy lady. you're the politics to. for this, we'll find jon henke, there will be a subset that will overlap with the christian right. for the most part they don't really need to talk nuts and bolts of politics because god has offered them an end run around this is to. to what they need do is get serious about their faith and was hoping. >> host: wind of this movement start? >> guest: i think the beginning of the message from a spring out of the postwar revival from the 1950s. so these are pentecostal independent revivalist. these are the guys to show up

the small towns, put up giant canvas cathedrals and track hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. in the postwar years, and these have traditionally been heroes. someone like oral roberts but the 19 in his right hand. these were usually people who people came to be held from a kind of diseases. after world war ii we find the number of diseases that need to be healed in this way really reduce. max vaccinations. there's some sense as sosa a kind of thinks me from preachers. there's a developing confidence they have come a new vocabulary that springs of billfold some multiplier for steve faith is a word that comes into turn -- and to use. the idea that your money is not just a concrete name. as a representation of what could have been. you have to sell it into because

fisk is toilet but then multiply that to you. this is all very different in the language of tightening the truth discreet and concrete. tithing 10% of what you birdie on. siegfried asks people to give in order to risk youth. many multiplied in an in spiritual universe. this is absolutely animated. >> host: jim and tammy faye bakker, with a prosperity gospel ministers? >> guest: they were the kind of perfect embodiment of that. i like writing about the fact he started a christian wonderland instead of the church. they had a see what god can do playful attitude. tammy faye was always two seconds away from her stint in tucson at all times. here without a powder blue suit and a heavy gold watch and a carnival like atmosphere in their life and marriage. because of that very magnetic. they were so fond to watch and

had a who knows what's there open the doors virtually the lookout for an. >> host: who did these minutes as appeal to? >> guest: well, there's very little good data on that. the relationship between audience and televangelist is pretty meager as far as to draw in. we do know that in the 80s the kinds of televangelist like tammy faye bakker. check it to the silver set, the elderly, the at-home viewers. but now we can see what the mega-church phenomenon, this is a young middle-class phenomenon. everyone thinks this is a sad come into janette poured her chin on my last penny to drop it in the coffers. but this is the kind of thing an aspirational middle-class audience is going to see weekly in order to get practical resources for how to think about their shops and marriages and parenting as spiritual.

>> host: white black latino? >> guest: sure. right now i do a thing on latino mega-churches and it's overwhelming how many were started in the last 10 years. latino mega-churches are the new fresh face on the same. before they been largely constrained to immigrant resource is, very small churches. but now there like everybody else, have different tv shows him under an top arms. like one of the offshoots, for example, robert schuller's church, crystal cathedral was a fabulous incarnation. anytime you have a church of the river, i feel like you have a gospel. the latino church that can be in office to college favored day church is the latino prosperity and they have a whole host of the lease between three and 5000 to a church like that.

>> host: kate bowler can you teach religion here at duke. we teach each? >> guest: [inaudible] >> host: what is your religious background? >> guest: i come from a non-denominational mennonite background. >> host: you consider yourself a christian? >> guest: i do. >> host: when you look at mega-churches, what appeals to you? >> guest: i do find sometimes the gustavus i can impart the ability of such a departure from a lot of mainline churches i go to weather that can see through a run and ask for food program. the cover bester route reaches. a very concrete, very practical. i love the excitement. i love the enthusiasm. it gives dignity to every person in a way to really impress me. >> host: what doesn't appeal to you? >> guest: i think i asked you

that sometimes just based on lies that when i visit these churches. when i'm sitting at the choir so inspirational, the hints are swaying. as such and not in the day, beautiful thing. if i sit near the rear chill section i find this couple to make it through the services. when you see all that are so sure that their faith has let them down, that their bodies are failing them, that they have a weekly errands to do. she'll inadequacies as they are not yet healed or not get rich, i want safe to be a place where people receive comfort that we are told maybe but not quite yet. that's not always the message they're getting. >> host: to students at the divinity school here at duke, do they admire, judaic buyer to be mega-church pastors? >> guest: for the most part they are lovely cheese eating

method is at the gentle variety. so they are largely -- they're stuck with the same mainline problems everybody else's. mortgage heavy churches, largely downtown that they could no longer afford. they struggle with your questions at the prosperity gospel. what happens if they can't prove things will become bigger and better? what would it decline narrative look like insulated rhetoric of faithfulness? at the real challenge for everyone. post a mega-churches are growing? >> guest: they are. they are crowded around every urban metropolis. they are a wide-open virtual market. but they really appeal to a certain kind of preacher. you has has to be wildly charismatic. you have to have a fabulous head of hair and you have to have an infectious sense that things always will get better. people rarely going to attend a church or your kids may not be a smart come your marriage might

fall through. americans want to your things will tomorrow and they will avoid the churches to challenge that. >> host: do politicians -- are they trying to these large congregations on one place? >> guest: absolutely. we see it in a battleground states show up whenever there's a series of mega-churches in a battleground state. bettina mega-churches are especially popular. it's a swing vote. hostels that is in a swing state. they can become incredibly effective ways of mobilizing people in getting the message out. >> host: are there areas where most of these churches are aggregated? >> guest: sure. it's easier to tell where the prosperity churches are not. vermont, for example has very few. the northeast is not fertile ground. neither is the mountain west. whether mormons are not in we typically find very few. there are very few

mega-churches. >> host: wide? >> guest: it is in part because the demographics. the next certain 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 sunbelt cities some of those are going to be fabulous but fertile ground. also just places where people are on move. places where hispanic immigration is on the rise, that's a great -- i could tell people right now where they should plant churches and their likely grow the next five years. it's really about immigration population density, major highways. >> host: here in north carolina near durham, any mega-churches in this area? >> guest: there are mega-churches. there is one prosperity mega-church in the area, while

dover, had fun from the 1980s it was kind of an amazing story. one of the few mega-churches that was simply urban. it was a time of the church had more people than the time it was then. they have the kind of jim and tammy said appeal where they had matching spurt lease its. >> host: it is the difference between a mega-church in the prosperity mega-church. the mega-churches have the reputation for being non-denominational, optimistic, things would get better. for the most part come in mega-churches usually numb or his lies, and many if not most long to denominations in the typically mall. most are barely hitting the threshold in 2000 to 2500.

prosperity mega-churches, the report things. i look for faith, a sense that faith is not just toper trust, but actually a spiritual power released by believers, the invisible thing that goes out into the universe and draws back. so how do you know your faith is working? look for health and wealth. is it the other two markers. there's a lot of pentecostal preachers. you're my prosperity church if he preached those. the last is victory. victory is the thing that will put in people are spinning globe in every logo. it is the connection that people think they're just about to get better. chin up, eyes on the horizon. if he preached us for things, come about separator prosperity mega-church from an average mega-church. host go home partner status? >> guest: extremely important. they are the primary litmus test of whether the prosperity cost

was working. no one wants to see aside doughty man standalone in the pulpit. what they want is beautiful, bond or these voluminously haired wife standing beside him. it's also a great week to divide the ministry and to geishas. the one mentioned the women and children and the man can do the heavy lifting of the main prosperity work. that became popular in the 1980s and has become the major trend in almost all churches today. >> host: to the ministers of these press dirty mega-churches font their wealth? >> guest: absolutely. they will do it in more lefties always. i only she'll are recently have slack for the helicopter needed new plates and asking people to donate. the number was $52 per person in order to supply more for that ministry. master people a slightly to match. that just goes to show you just

how fired they can go in order to demonstrate that their lives are really marked by god's favor. >> host: kate bowler, sunday mornings, joel osteen on for just half an hour. his term in. what is a fully church service like? >> guest: it will service them uplifting music via grammy award-winning singer-songwriter. it will have some gentle fog that mimics the holy spirit come down. he'll have at least 20 people greeting you before you make your way from the concrete parking needs into the sanctuary and the gorgeous enormous building. the illness are designed to be the most beautiful places people are every week. truth and beauty has always been the main appeals of the christian message. they are really going for beauty. >> host: , the whole service last? >> guest: you have about 20 minutes or so of music and then

in many paintings are minimal frequently be done by the tory a last people to give this understanding of you kids and god will reward you with more. and then the bucket come out in the buckets go away. joel osteen will preach for less than half an hour to virtual sans round of the master service. they're quite efficient. i went to their good ready service. it is in part because i couldn't find any other good ready service in his canaria, which initially surprised me and then if you think it through, they don't need good friday so much as they need use her. so good friday -- but what a good friday service look like quite i was wished he joyfully happy good friday at least 15 times on my way in. they have kind of a living as

they brought out a lamb. by the third song, jesus had died, but then was swiftly resurrect it. quite early on in the service, which shows you how quickly they want to rush to the hand. they really want to russia because just to show you chooses to solve the terrible work so you get the kind of blessings god wants to shower in you. >> host: about the mainline churches on the some of the missions come out reach, food banks, shipments, et cetera come into the prosperity churches have those programs as well? >> guest: they do. here we can see if that term of approaches. a hard prosperity is a very instantaneous view of the relationship between faith and rewards. you have faith you will find yourself almost in continuously healed in the coffers will begin to be filled. itzhak prosperity will have a more roundabout gentler appraisal of the relationship works between faith in the work.

there's a hard prosperity with more of an emphasis on individuals who shall serve as this, scott kind of rather than advocating, for example, educational reform, they look at every kid a kid a school bag filled with school supplies. something catered towards individuals and individuals and understand their level. the soft press verities a little more open, especially among lack mega-churches, a lot more open to housing, prison reform, whiter macrolevel structural solutions. for the most part, press verity thinking tilts away from structural solutions because out of 30 giving you everything you need in order to solve the problems. >> host: what is in the reaction of some of the mega-church members to your book, "blessed." >> guest: i think there's an -- i hope there's been some level of wreck -- and that those are categories they use and hold dear.

i'd think there'll always be wary that anyone who sat in the word gospel like prosperity gospel before the word is not surely be kept at all of it. for the most fair, the criticism i've gotten the same tonight and i'd rather have that answer has something something people didn't recognize. >> host: who says you're too nice? >> guest: most everyone. evangelicals are not thrilled with me. one called it dangerous for fear that people read the book and accidentally convert. i just think it is the work of history. charity in humor circle and never tried to present things in the way people would recognize. >> host: at the search is evangelical? >> guest: well, the boundaries of pentecostal or quite porous. we have found that straddle the line between pentecostal evangelical, but more and more straight up evangelical. he