Rantings of a Black Polemicist

Flock-fleecing pays well

Friday, May 28th, 2004 | Free Thought

Christianity insists that people believe assertions that can’t be proven. By definition, the supernatural lies outside the natural realm - the sphere of man’s understanding. According to scripture, faith in the unseen and unknown is so important that nothing but damnation awaits even those that lived a virtuous life or were never fortunate enough to learn about the nature of God. No one is born with this knowledge, it is taught. Faith itself is virtue, and questioning dogma is taboo.

Some preachers exploit the blind faith of their followers to levels that boggle the mind. I was watching BET this morning and Creflo Dollar (that’s really his name) was preaching to his flock about how to unlock their financial blessings. This is the 4th time I’ve caught his show, and the technique he uses doesn’t change much:

#1: God Wants You to Be Rich:

He talks about how followers of God are entitled to financial prosperity, and that it is imminent for each one of them.

#2: Giving is the Key to Receiving:

He then quotes a string of vague scriptures out of context, assigning his own meaning to them.

I listened to him open his sermon by promising that he would show where God had revealed how to tell exactly when a financial “blessing” would come. Instead, he started rattling off a series of unrelated scriptures about rain. He then linked rain to financial giving with a neat little metaphor - comparing evaporation and condensation in the sky to giving money to God (through him, that is) and rain to “blessings” being showered on those who gave. He went on to talk about the rewards of not only giving consistently, but without any regard to one’s financial situation. He took it even further talking about “sacrificial giving”, which I could only take that to mean giving money one can’t really afford to give.

He went on to promise specifically that God would give multi-million dollar business ideas to people who faithfully gave. Then he instructed his flock to give not what they wanted to give, but what they heard God telling them to.

What’s most reprehensible (or brilliant) here is that faith is the driving force behind all of this. Not being blessed? It’s because you don’t have enough faith. How dare you question what God has planned for your life?

Dr. Dollar quite effectively removes his followers’ will to question his “teachings”, and has created quite a fortune by doing so. His church has over 20,000 members. He drives a black Rolls-Royce, flies to speaking engagements in his own $5 million Learjet and lives on a $1 million gated Atlanta estate. God is certainly blessing him more than some of his congregation, who catch public transportation to hear him speak. Dr. Dollar is an extreme example of the problem with blind faith.

This much is clear: any dogma demanding blind acceptance else suffer personal hardship or eternal damnation does so out of need. Only by removing reason and substituting faith can that doctrine be free to survive.

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