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faith reaches out to into the invisible and brings bacterial things. >> host: what is penalty cost tall? >> guest: pent coughs tallism a movement that prank up in the 20th century, with spirit all exists on power of god to be scene through spiritual tongs. it is times and wonders mentality, that god is just aarp the corner you have to keep your ice open. the prosperity gospel looks for less than traditional things. >> host: when you say things, does the prosperity gospel mean wealth if you follow this way? >> guest: sure. surprisingly material. pentacostals were material too. they said the body was god's home. it was profoundly american things you could say. you're not just an individual do it yourself bootstrapper. you're a can be manifestation of

god's very presence. the prosperity gospel took that way to be interpret it more concretely just not in your health which is historic christian tenent but also in your finances. they developed more and more vocabularily are you every little detail of their life was proof that god was there. >> host: is this uniquely american? >> guest: i think in some ways it is kind of indigenous american gospel. it is rugged individualism. it is sewer natural bootstraps. it has an incredibly high anthropologie. there is no mean, kind of sense of what people can do. there is really no nation that seems 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: that is a tough question. most popular are joel osteen,

t.d. jakes, joyce meyer, frederick price. really everywhere there is megachurch around local celebrity you will find a prosperity preacher. the term is controversial. that was burden of this book, how do you lump people in that would resist that label. >> host: did some of those ministers participate in your book? >> guest: i did. i managed to visit a quarter of what i identified as prosperity megachurchs. i interviewed representing a ministry from every major ministry. i was annoying person pressed up at the glass at every conference hoping to get a glimpse what was going on. >> host: what did you hear? what kind of messages are these churches preaching? >> guest: what surprised me the most. it wasn't so much about money. i thought naturally the

prosperity gospel money is one of the most surprising claims. surely this is gospel about money. what i found out they didn't talk about money nearly as much as i expected them to. the kind of excitement they had, every special detail was given bod's attention, not just being god in every empty parking space sort the mentality but that their budgets, their families, their marriages, their happiness, their promotions, every little part of their lives were worthy of spirit all attention. >> host: and, what does that have to do with prosperity? is it more than just a wealth prosperity? >> guest: they would call it a whole life prosperity and i guess, i mean theological terms we would say something like, well, critics will call it more overly realized es can technology, we'll see for of the presence of kingdom of god here on earth, when christians thought most of the good stuff happens when we die.

>> host: isn't in the bible something, i'm paraphrasing, what you give, god gives back tenfold? >> guest: the search for the numbers is a tricky one. most of the hard numbers people will get from teasing up parts of covenant theology throughout the old testament. there are a few concrete, biblical numbers, threes, sevens, hundreds, the desire for numbers is mostly a desire to look for a spirit all formula. what is it, where can we find the key that unlocks god's bank. where there is number, revelation, some of the apocalyptic literature in the old testament they will try to find and tease out formulas. for the most part prosperity preachers have tried to shy away from numbers, in part because a greater sense that though the theology stuff will more begets more, we do live in relatively concrete financial universe and we can't promise everyone 100

fold on every return. >> host: these megachurchs, what megachurchs? >> guest: megachurchs were easier there was already a database of 1600 or so megachurchs that exist in the country. what i could do then, go through every single one and every single website, pull them out and make my own list based on shared rhetoric, shared institutional connections. they tend to go to the same conferences. get accredited, honorary doctorates from the same schools. i figurefiguring if they look like talk and walk like a prosperity doc i could lump them together on my own as a mess ga church. >> host: did they become megachurchs because they preach this prosperity gospel? >> guest: that is a great question. they seem to be natural am lies in many senses. we will find sometimes a smaller church that takes on a

prosperity theology and become as moss parity megachurch. we shouldn't confuse megachurchs and the prosperity gospel. there are 1600 or so megachurchs in the country and only minority are prosperity megachurchs. what is unusual they really dominate the upper tier of churches. the biggest of big churches in the country preach a message and their influence is enormous. they could be top after feudal pyramid where they have all sorts of people under them that preach is similar message that look to them for inspiration. so their message spreads far beyond what you express a church could do. >> host: lakewood church, joel osteen, reported tend dance, 38,000 guest that's right. >> host: world changers ministries, jreflow dollar, 30,000. potters house, t.d. jakes, 30,000, dallas texas.

are those prosperity churches, those top three? >> guest: absolutely. those are helpful shorthand where to find these churches are all prosperity churches. most will make the top 50 of largest churches in the country. >> host: all tax-exempt? >> guest: they are entrepreneurial in spirit. the churches themselves are tax except but what they typically do if they're very famous, they split their churches into for-profit and not-for-profit wings. t.d. jakes has slash potter house and t.d. jakes enterprises. he is great example. producer. probably a writer. a film writer i mean. they have all kinds of fingers in different pots. >> host: that's the profit side or the taxable side? >> guest: that's right. they will say don't look as me necessarily example taking money out of the coffers. i actually make most of my money from this other wing. that is sometimes true for some and it is less true for others.

they, they don't really have to justify how much money they make in part because of the theological infrastructure of the movement. all they have to say is look, i did it and i can show you how to do it too. more is more and i can show you the way. >> host: somebody who spoke at president bush's, inaugural, kirby john caldwell, windsor village united methodist church. 14,000 attendance, houston, texas. >> guest: one of the big surprises of prosperity movement and why it took me so long to write this book. in order to demonstrate how widespread it is, take into account not stereotypical prosperity megachurchs which are non-denominational, but some of the denominational ones in almost every major american denomination we find at least one prosperity megachurch. that could include, united meth difficults, adorable as they are, disciples of christ. just shy after presbyterian megachurch i'm sure somewhere

out there. >> host: when did this prosperity gospel, well, first of all, is there a political philosophy with these churches? do they talk politics? >> guest: they do but it is a kind of a subset. you. different niches, you're the spiritual warfare guy, you're the prophecy lady, you're the politics do. we find john hagge, rod parsley, there will be a subset that overlap with the christian right. for the most part they don't need to talk nuts and bolts with politics because god ever offered them a end-run around systems that oppress them. they seed need to get serious about their faith and doors will open. >> host: when did this prosperity gospel and movement start? >> guest: postwar revivals of the 1950s. these pentacostal's intent revival alists. twice that show up in small towns, put up giant canvas

cathedrals and attracts hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. in the postwar years these have traditionally been healers. someone like oral roberts would anointing in his right hand. these were usually people who people came to be healed from all kinds of diseases. after world war ii we find number of diseases that need to be healed in this way really reduced, mass vaccinations. there is sense of really those aren't quite things we need from preachers. so there is developing confidence that they have, a new vocabulary that springs up of more racklous billfolds that multiply or seed faith is a word that comes into term, into use. it is the idea that your money is not just a concrete thing, it's, it's a representation of what could happen. you have to sow it hopefully into my ministry because this is good soil, it will then multiply

back to you. this is all very different than language of tithing which was discrete and concrete. tithe something 10% what you already earned. seed faith asks people to give in order to receive, money multiplied in an unseen spiritual universe. this was absolutely innovative, thee logically speaking. >> host: jim and tammy faye bakker, were they prosperity gospel ministers? >> guest: they were. they were kind of perfect embodiment. 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. tammy faye was two seconds from bursting into song at all times. he had a powder blue suit and heavy gold watch and kind of like carnal-like atmosphere in their own life and marriage. because of that they were magnetic, they were so fun to watch and it kind of had a who

knows, let's throw open the doors spirit alley and see what god springs in. >> host: who does these, who do these ministers appeal to? >> guest: we know, there are very little good data. relationship of audience and televangelists in particular. there are meager resources to draw on. we know that those televangelists like jim and tammy faye bakker were attractive to silver set, elderly and home viewers. the megachurch phenomenon this is young, middle class phenomenon. everyone thinks this is the sad indigent poor reaching out the last penny to drop it in the coffer, but really this is the kind of thing that a aspirational middle class audience will see weekly in order to get practical resources how to think about their jobs and their marriages and their parenting as spiritual.

>> host: whoo, black, latino? >> guest: i'm doing a thing on latino prosperity megachurch, overwhelming how many started last 10 years. latino megachurchs are the new fresh facial on the scene. before they were largely constrained to immigrant resources, limited churches with few means. they have like everybody else, tv shows, enormous media platforms. like one of the offshoots, for example, of robert schuler's church the crystal cathedral. that was fabulous incarnation of prosperity theology. anytime you have a church with a river i feel like you have a prosperity gospel. the latino smaller megachurch that became offshoot, favor day, favor day church is latino prosperity offshoot and they have a whole host of at least between three and 5000 weekly attenders to a church like that.

>> host: kate bowler, you teach religion here at duke? >> guest: i teach american religious history which is slightly weird because i'm canadian. >> host: what is religious background? >> guest: i come from non-denominational mennonite background. >> host: do you consider yourself a christian? >> guest: i do. >> host: what you look at megachurchs what appeals to you? >> guest: i find sometimes expectancy and possibility from a lot of main line churches i go to, their expectancy, food program and outline reaches in terms of prison ministry, very concrete and very practical. i love, i love the excitement. i love enthusiasm. i love in a way the intense spiritualizing of details. it gives dignity to every person in a way really impressed me. >> host: what doesn't appeal to you?

i think i experience that sometimes based where i sit when i visit these churches. when i sit near the choir, so inspirational, of the robes are beautiful. hands are swaying, optimistic beautiful thing. but as i sit near the wheelchair section i find sometimes i struggle to make it through the services. when you see people that are so sure that their faith has let them down. that their victim's are failing them. they have a weekly experience of their own spiritual inadequacies because they are not yet healed or not yet rich, i want, faith to be a place where people receive comfort. that weir told, maybe but not quite yet. and that is not always a message that they're getting. >> host: the students at the divinity school here at duke, do they ad my, do they aspire to be megachurch pastors? >> guest: for the most part they are lovely, methodists of the

gentle variety. they're largely in a, they're stuck with the same kind of main line problems everybody else is. mortgage heavy churches. largely downtown they can no longer afford. they're struggling with their own questions of the prosperity gospel. what happens if they can't prove in their ministries that things will become bigger and better? what would a decline narrative look like and still rhetoric of faithfulness. i think it is real challenge. >> host: megachurch is are growing, aren't they? >> guest: they are. they are every urban met trop police. they are wide open spiritual market. they appeal to certain kind of preacher. you have to be wildly charismatic. you have to have a fabulous head of hair around you have to have an infectious sense that things always will get better. people are rarely going to attend a church where your kids might not be as smart, your marriage might falter a little. americans want to hear things will be better tomorrow and they

will avoid churches that challenge that presupposition. >> host: do politicians, are they drawn to these large congregations all in one place? >> guest: absolutely. we see it in kind of battleground state show up, when ever there is series of megachurchs in battleground state, latino megachurchs in florida are popular. it's a swing vote, pentacostals that is, in a swing state. they can become incredibly effective ways to mobilize people and get the message out. >> host: are there areas of the country where most of these churches are aggregated? >> guest: sure. it is easier to tell where the prosperity megachurchs are not. vermont, for example. very few. the northeast is not fertile ground. neither is the mountain west where there are mormons or mountains, we find typically few, there is a alliteration for you.

there are very few prosperity megachurchs. >> host: why? >> guest: i think demographics, urban populations. they put churches like that at crossroads of major highways. so where we find big open spaces, with major highways and a huge, sprawling population, albeit almost all sunbelt 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 just, tell people right now where they should plant churches and they will likely grow next five years. it is really about immigration, population densities, major highways and spirit of the lord. >> host: here in north carolina at near durham, any megachurchs in this area? >> guest: sure, yeah, there are megachurchs. there's, there is one prosperity megachurch in the area. world overcomers i think.

there is one from the 1980s. it was kind of an amazing story. one of the few prosperity megachurchs that wasn't really urban. it was in a town that had, that the church had more people than the town it was in. it was timberlake's church. they had the kind of jim and tammy faye appeal with matching sparkly suits and kind of really exciting attitude. >> host: what is the difference between a megachurch and a prosperity megachurch? are they preaching different gospels? >> guest: megachurchs have the reputation for being non-denominational optimistic, things can get better, media savvy but are to the most part megachurchs usually, numbers wise, many, if not most belong to denominations. they're typically small. so most megachurchs are barely hitting that threshold at 2,000, 2500.

prosperity megachurchs on other hand, i look for four things. i look for faith, a sense that faith is not just hope or trust but it is actually a spiritual power that is released by believers. that invisible thing that goes out into the universe and draws back blessings. so how do you know your faith is working? you look for health and wealth. those are other two markers. there is a lot of pentacostal preachers that will preach health. you're only prosperity church if you preach both. the last is victory. victory is the thing that will put eagle or spinning globe in every logo. it is thing that convinces people that things are just about to get better, chin up, eyes on the horizon. if they preach those four things, that would separate a prosperity megachurch from just average megachurch. >> host: how important are spouses? >> guest: extremely important. they're the primary litmus test whether the prosperity gospel. no one wants to see a sad, dowdy

man balding standing alone in the pulpit. they want his beautiful blonde or voluminously-haired wife standing beside him. it is great way to divide the ministry into niches. the women can do women and children and the man can do the spiritual heavy lifting of the main prosperity work. that became very popular in the 1980s and has become a major trend in all churches today. >> host: do the ministers of these prosperity megachurchs flaunt their wealth? >> guest: oh, absolutely. do it in more or less tasteful ways. ivy hilliard recently had some flak for advertising that his helicopter needed new blade and asking people to donate i think 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, that just goes to show you just how

far they can go in order to demonstrate that their lives are really marks by god's favor. >> host: kate bowler, sunday mornings, joel osteen on half an hour, just his sermon, what a full lakewood church service like? >> guest: it will start with very uplifting music by grammy award winning singer-songwriter. it will have some gentle fog that let's the holy spirit come down. it will have at least 20 people greeting you from you make your way from the concrete parking maze to the sanctuary, enormous, gorgeous building. these are designed to be the most beautiful people are every week. truth and beauty are main appeals of christian message and they're going for the beauty. >> host: how long will the service last? >> guest: 20 service or so of

music. mini tithing service. that will be done by victoria osteen who asks people to give with particular understanding of you give around god will reward you with more. and 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. and then spiritual song roundup and that is your service. they're really quite efficient. i went to their good friday service. it was in part because i 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. so good friday, what would a good friday service look like at lakewood? i was wish ad joy fully happy good friday, at least 15 times on my way in. they had kind of a living zoo that they brought out a lamb, jesus as the lamb.

by the third song jesus had been, had died but joy fully 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 jesus does all the terrible work, that you get blessings god wants to shower on you. >> host: a lot of main line churches, missions, like you said, outreach, food banks, shut-ins, et cetera, dot prosperity churches have those programs as well? >> guest: they do. here we can see i think a spectrum of approaches. hard prosperity, very instantaneous view of the relationship between faith and reward. you have faith, you will find yourself almost instantaneously healed and covers will begin to be filled. a soft prosperity will have a more round-about, gentler appraisal how the relationship works between faith and your reward. and i find there was a hard prosperity there is more of an emphasis on individual social

services, bootstraps kinds of, so this will be rather than advocating for educational reform, they will give every kid a school bag, filled with school supplies. something catered toward individuals and at family level. the soft prosperity is a little more open especially among black churches open to housing, prison reform, wider, macro level structural kinds of solutions. though, for the most part prosperity thinking tilts away from structural solutions because god is already given you everything you need in order to solve these problems. >> host: kate bowler what has been reaction of megachurch members to your book blessed? >> guest: i think there has been, i hope there has been some level of recognition those are categories they use and hold dear. i think they will always be worried that anyone who is

adding the word gospel, like prosperity gospel before the word is naturally being skeptical of it, but for the most part the criticism have gotten i'm too nice. i rather have nice than something people didn't recognize as themselves. >> host: who says you're too nice? >> guest: most everyone. evangelicals are not thrilled with me. one called it dangerous for fear that people will read the book and ostensibly convert. i think it is work of history. charity and humor is our goal and when we try to present things in a way that people would recognize. >> host: are these churches not evangelical? >> guest: well the boundaries of pentacostalism are quite porous. we have some that straddle the line between pentacostal and evangelical, more and more are straight up evangelical. they wouldn't necessarily espouse spiritual gifts as part of their main theology.

that is the new frontier for the prosperity gospel. white ehave been gel callism, looks like prosperity gospel optimism it will find it very hard to distinguish itself. >> host: are prosperity churches considered antiintellectual by some? >> guest: yes, i think they are. in part because they, they don't want to play by the same rules. they don't want to go to same schools or subject themselves to same kind, i guess historical debates where they fall. we should think of them as naturally restorationist by impulse. so people who immediately forget their history in order to think about god's revelation is always falling afresh. if you ask a prosperity preacher where does your message come from, a presbyterian, ask a presbyterian and they will know. you ask a prosperity preacher, it came in a dream or god spoke to me. so it is an erase sure of history and in that moment is allows them to have kinds of

creativity. benny hinn earlier on got fair bit of trouble with theological creativity, the sense of constant open revelation led him to wonder if maybe each member of the trinity had their own trinity. that came out to nine and it got okay awkward. the problem was it was in his book good morning holy spirit that sold millions of copies. he walked that back. he felt people were laughing at him, it had just kind of been what he wanted as playful moment other people thought of as not following the sort of rules of orthodoxy and perfecting. >> host: any of these church ideas, prosperity gospel ideas been exported to canada, mexico, europe? >> guest: absolutely. one of the genius elements of the prosperity gospel, you ask me if this is american phenomenon, hard to tell because almost immediately it is

indigittized. there is canadian version. more staid. hands are lower, less clapping, a little dancing. it is fabulously adaptable. so nigerian prosperity there is filipino prosperity gospel that is largely catholic. wonderfully variable. >> host: kate bowler is a professor of religion here at duke at the divinity school. she is the author of this book, "blessed," a history of the american prosperity gospel published by oxford. >> you're watching booktv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see here online at booktv.org. >> now on