When Religious Leaders Support Class War

[rug]

December 10, 2013
by JUSTIN DOOLITTE

Buried on the fourth page of Lori Montgomery’s recent piece in the Washington Post on Paul Ryan’s alleged anti-poverty crusade is an incredibly disparaging quote from Bishop Shirley Holloway, a minor religious celebrity in D.C., who, after assuring us that “Paul wants people to dream again,” omnisciently asserts that “you don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps.”

It’s a bizarre sentiment that understandably provoked a snarky backlash from liberal bloggers. But it’s also an unusually honest expression of how religious conservatives and allies of Paul Ryan view the lower classes. For many on the broadly defined Christian Right, what ails the poor is that they are not “dreaming” as they should be. This may be due to circumstance, or personal failing, or some combination of both. But the message is clear: for the millions of luckless souls who find themselves in abject poverty, there is a simple, straightforward path to tangible and dramatic socioeconomic improvement. Luckily, it doesn’t require increased social spending by government, or taxes on the rich, or anything like that (in fact, it might require reduced social spending and lower taxes on the rich). As it turns out, “dreaming” is all that’s needed.

Shirley Holloway is far from the only religious leader who proposes intensified dreaming as the key mechanism by which one can escape poverty. But, without question, the leading exponent of this school of thought is one Joel Osteen, celebrity pastor at Lakewood Church, the largest church in the United States. Osteen has built an extremely lucrative personal empire on the foundational message that, if his extended flock will simply agree to dream bigger and think more positively, God will grace them with previously unimaginable levels of wealth and success. Each week, when millions of people around the world tune in to see the perpetually smiling Osteen deliver his sermon to a reliably packed arena, they hear some variation of the promise that everyone is this close to “realizing their full potential” and experiencing a vague but boundless bliss.

Osteen, who is strategically nonpolitical, effortlessly churns out bestsellers that more or less repeat this same message in a variety of ways. In 2009, amidst brutal, worldwide economic devastation, he released a book titled “It’s Your Time: Activate Your Faith, Achieve Your Dreams, and Increase in God’s Favor.” On the back cover of the hard copy, Osteen laments that “a global recession” has caused so many to “postpone their dreams.” Writing in the personal style, as though he were addressing a single person, Osteen writes that even though “you may have lost your job, your savings, maybe even your home,” you “are closer than you think” to seeing all of your most glorious dreams come to fruition. “Your dream may just be up around the corner,” this multimillionaire promises, so “don’t talk yourself out of your goals and dreams.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/10/when-religious-leaders-support-class-war/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=when-religious-leaders-support-class-war

[rrneck]

1. Prosperity gospel designed by grifters for grifters.

This racket is straight out of Madison Avenue. He might as well be selling New Coke.

[cbayer]

2. Well, Joel Osteen's dreams clearly came true.

Excellent article that rips that thin veneer of "concern" right off their agenda.

[struggle4progress]

3. I don't know anything about Holloway, but the piece might be unfair to her

... Holloway .. had a .. career as a manager with the U.S. Postal Service when she experienced what she calls a "burning bush" moment in 1995. ... Holloway was speaking at a women's shelter when she suddenly realized, "They don't need someone talking at them for two hours," she said. "I was being cordial, wearing a fur coat, clutching a purse," Holloway said. "After, I sat in the car crying." She started by taking into her home.. a family in which both parents were addicted to drugs. Soon after, she secured a 12-unit building in Southeast Washington and began running a full-service shelter. When the property owner sold that building, she moved her operation, known as House of Help City of Hope, into a motel. Just as funding to pay for the rooms was running out in 2002, Washington-based philanthropist George Kettle .. purchased a dilapidated building on 16th Street that was a haven for drug users and prostitutes and turned it over to Holloway, who moved House of Help City of Hope to that location, Holloway said ...
Shelter offers new home, new hope
By Zoe Tillman
The Gazette
Thursday, January 13, 2011

... In Southeast Washington, Ryan met Bishop Shirley Holloway, who gave up a comfortable career in the U.S. Postal Service to minister to drug addicts, ex-offenders, the homeless — people for whom government benefits can serve only to hasten their downfall, Holloway said. At City of Hope, they are given an apartment and taught life skills and encouraged to confront their psychological wounds. They can stay as long as they’re sober and working, often in a job Holloway has somehow created. “Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps” ...
Paul Ryan, GOP’s budget architect, sets his sights on fighting poverty and winning minds
By Lori Montgomery, Published: November 18

If I ever heard Holloway's theological views, they might drive me up the wall, but I don't have any problem with what people say she's doing: she seems to be reaching out to some marginalized sectors of the society, showing people a way out, and offering them a hand up -- and that counts for a lot in my book. She seems willing to work with others, and a lot of DC locals are aware of her: the DC Dems had a meeting in June at which she gave remarks

It seems Ryan's busily doing meet-and-greets, trying to line up support as he plans his run for the Presidency. The probability I'd ever vote for him is approximately zero and perhaps less than that, since I regard him as an uncompromising rightwing ideologue -- a type for which I have little respect. Somebody told him to go talk to Holloway, so he did

2016 is some way off. Holloway may not see much up-side to bashing Ryan. That's her right

[rug]

4. See, there's the thing. It's unrealistic to expect a manager to embrace workers' issues.

But I don't know anything about her either.

[struggle4progress]

5. Class analysis is a technique for understanding social systems, not a way to understand people

Coupled with a sociological view of how the structure of a particular society governs who talks to who and how, and coupled with a particular quasi-Freudian view of self-justifying rationalization, class analysis can provide useful decodings of various forms of speech in a particular time and place. Chomsky (for example) did very nice work some years ago showing how outraged cries of Communism! could be decoded in a number of cases as reflecting a particular corporate opposition to foreign national control of resources

In principle, I don't disagree with the idea, that those occupying managerial slots may have difficulty understanding matters clearly from the perspective of workers' interests. But it's no hard and fast rule: Engels, at one time, was a factory owner

And even if one finds class analysis useful when organizing for change, it's important to realize that the lumpenproletariat can be nearly impossible to organize: people, who experience constant anxiety about where they'll find their next meal or when they'll again be inside out of the cold, are not usually people in a position to think clearly and intelligently about how to work for long-range social objectives

From a religious perspective, one ought also note that Christianity (say) should not be confused with a certain political view or a certain form of social analysis: it is, rather, more like the doctrine that imperfect humans should love the rest of imperfect humanity personally in word and deed. Neither "you'll get pie in the sky when you die" nor "I'll pray you find something to eat" effectively spreads much love. I happen to think that in a democracy we ought to work for general safety nets to protect people from falling into misery and onto the street, but as a practical matter, my side has been losing this fight politically for some decades now, and long-term political work towards more humane policies alone won't fill empty stomachs today: "Stay warm and I'll go back to lobbying the legislature when they're back in session" doesn't exactly spreads love, either

I regard Paul Ryan's "solutions" as bullshit, that many of the privileged are likely to push because such solutions don't dip into their well-lined pockets. But why should I bitch and moan about Holloway, if she's actually doing something? Her analysis may be confused, but anybody she actually helps is one less miserable person

[rug]

6. That's a fair analysis.

I'll have to read it again in the morning. It deserves more than a waking-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night read.