Central America Neo Pentecostals 4 ING JLR Oct

7/30/2019 Central America Neo Pentecostals 4 ING JLR Oct

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CENTRAL AMERICA

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The Neo-Pentecostals mega-churches

are really mega-businesses.

Their pastors act like executives

and employ showman skills

to entertain their followers.

They preach entrepreneurship,

management spirit and positive thinking.

They were born in the USA but are spreading fast

throughout Central America.

44envo

JOS LUIS ROCHA

H alf a century ago, Antonio Gramsci wrote thatreligion must be approached not in theconfessional sense but in the secular sense of aunity of faith between a conception of the world and acorresponding norm of conduct. But why call this unity offaith religion and not ideology, or even frankly politics?More recently, Mario Vargas Llosa stated that we are livingimmersed in the entertainment civilization, whereeverything from politics to sexuality, and also religion, isturned into entertainment.

Over a century ago, evangelicals began making

adjustments to ensure a permanently increasing congrega-tion. But only recently, in 2005, did David Wells come upwith the concepts for understanding the urgency of theadjustment by distinguishing between traditional churches(producers) and churches of the seeker-sensitive kind

The third horseman of neoliberalism:The Neo-Pentecostals (part 4)

(consumers). Wells sustained that power had passed fromthe producers to the consumers. Churches that adapted theirworship, dress and architecture to pander to consumerpreferences had experienced rapid growth.

Churches with quality entertainment

Before Wells, around the seventies, pastor and expert onChristian leadership Bill Hybels, who founded the WillowCreek Community Church, intuited this significantdistinction very well. His was a prototype mega-church

the third largest in the United Stateswith 23,400churchgoers for Sunday service. Hybels was one of the firstto fit out his church in accord with demand, avoiding cognitivedissonance between the religious and the everyday. Aftergoing house to house to investigate why his neighbors had


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45october 2012

In the last two decades television has

emerged as an innovative arena for

religious entrepreneurialism, and with

the slow erosion of Catholicism as the

dominant religion, TV is helping

redefine religions role and importance

in the public arena

distanced themselves from the church, Hybels designed anew decor to adapt the worship to look like just any otherleisure entertainment activity. He changed his preachingtechniques, relaxed the dress code and started using videosand contemporary music. Technology has played a star rolein the giant mega-churches of the United Statesand alsoof Central Americaever since, altering communication with

the faithful and filling the collection boxes more. Accordingto US researchers Christine Miller and Nathan Carlin, thetheatrical lighting, music and young people jumping up anddown put the religious experience as close as possible to theexperience of MTV addicts and lovers of Disney World.

The Neo-Pentecostal churches have become qualityentertainment. Lights with changing colors, thunderousnoise and giant screens displaying men in suits and tiesrolling around the flooras in Cash Lunas House of God inGuatemalaall stimulate the senses. They provide theopportunity to witness an outlandish epiphany of muchgreater dimensionsalthough similar exoticismto thosedescribed in Erskine CaldwellsIn the Shadow of the Steeple:But I.S. rarely had anything to say after taking me to listento a prolonged and unintelligible babble in the UnknownTongue, or to see people rolling in the throes of ecstasy on achurch floor, or to watch a Sanctified preacher hit his headwith an axe handle until he had achieved a state of semi-conscious delirium.

TV is the new religious arena

The entertainment possibilities are much greater today thanin Caldwells times. In the last two decades television hasemerged as an innovative arena for religious entrepre-

neurialism, and with the slow erosion of Catholicism as thedominant religion, TV is helping redefine religions role andimportance in the public arena. It has provided invaluablehelp in the Lakewood Church of Reverend Joel Osteen, sonof Reverend John Osteen.

Osteen Jr. dropped out of university while still anundergraduate to get involved in his fathers televisionministry. His sermons are broadcast simultaneously in 140countries. Like many Christian shows, Lakewood Churchshad been relegated to the early Sunday morning slot and itscorresponding paltry audience. But Osteen negotiated withthe 25 US television networks with the biggest audienceand managed to get his program broadcast between 8 and

10 am, so its now possible for 92% of US households toaccess it. To achieve this media projection, his church had todouble its investment in television space from US$6 millionto US$12 million a year.

Lakewood Church has three enormous screens that show

whats happening on stage. The technology is morespectacular now that its headquarters is the old HoustonRockets stadium. We really want to feel like were in aconcert, said Lakewood Churchs executive director. Andthe strategy is working. Participation jumped from 6,000 in1999 to 25,000 in 2003 and 43,500 in 2011, with anadditional tele-congregation of 7 million in the United States

alone.The International Christian Center (CCI) in Honduras

founded by Ren Pealba after the board of directors of theLiving Love (Amor Viviente ) Church audited him forspeculating with lands belonging to that congregationis amedia conglomerate including CCI Radio, CCI Channel, thedaily newspaperLa Razn, the Sitios CCI website and CCIPublications. Also in Honduras, La Cosecha InternationalMinistry has the Estreo Fiel (Faithful Stereo) radio stationand Channel 39. In El Salvador, the International RevivalTabernacle (InternacionalTabernculo de Avivamiento) ownsa TV channel and a radio station, while its pastor, Carlos Rivas,has his own column in a local tabloid. Meanwhile, the ChristianFraternity of Guatemala is a partner in Channel 21.

Resorting to TV is symptomatic of an adaptation to whatVargas Llosa described as the entertainment civilization:That of a world in which entertainment occupies the firstplace on the chart of current values, where having a goodtime, escaping boredom, is a universal passion. As a result,according to him, popularity and success are conquered notso much through intelligence and probity as throughdemagogy and histrionic talent. He argues that theresnothing surprising about religion approximating circus andsometimes being confused with it in this pantomimecivilization.

De-sacralized religious arenas

Forty years after Hybels discovery and subsequent success,the decor and programmatic proposalsif they merit such a


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46envo

CENTRAL AMERICA

The pastors speak financial jargon and

profane decorations invade the

religious ground, sweeping away

stained glass and altarpieces and

installing macro-screens and ATMs

zation. Against many mechanistic forecasts, the hurricaneof secularization in Central Americaand other placesdidnt lead to a decline in religious practices, but rather aswitching of roles and cosmetics. On the one hand, themanagers acquired papal infallibility and financial valuesbecame the Holy Grail before which society sacrificed itself.And on the other, the pastors speak financial jargon and

profane decorations invade the religious ground, sweepingaway stained glass and altarpieces and installing macro-screens and ATMs. Its is the same dynamic seen from twodifferent angles.

Lakewood Church:

Mega-shows for religious consumers

In the United States de-sacralization, marinated withmanagerialism and entrepreneurialism, has had anabundance of proselytes. This dynamic of adapting to growand of ecclesiastical mega-businesses is the subject ofElizabeth Cooks thesis Would You Like Your Jesus Upsized?McDonaldization and the Mega Church. In 1970 there wereonly 10 mega-churches in the United States. Two decadeslater, 250 could be labeled as such. Thirteen years after thatthere were 740; and by 2011 the number had nearly doubledto 1,416, according to the Hartford Institute for ReligionResearch. The hundred biggest have a combined congregationof over a million people and half of them are considered non-denominational. Texas is the state with the greatestconcentration of them, including 17 of the biggest and 14 ofthe fastest-growing. The state capital, Houston, is home totwo of the most gigantic: Lakewood Church and the SecondBaptist Church, respectively the biggest and sixth biggest in

the whole country.Lakewood Church has the biggest congregation in theUnited States, with over 43,500 attending its Sundayservices. Embracing Hybels findings, it produced its ownweb page taking the religious consumer very much intoaccount and trying to emphasize the following elements:inclusivity, family, growth, trust, peace, spiritual experienceThese concepts have either carefully relegated to the backburner or totally eradicated some of those that certainconsumers might find strange, alien or distant: God, JesusChrist, the Holy Ghost, creeds, traditional prayersanything that might taint the Neo-Pentecostal communitysomnivorous spirit. This accounts for the vagueness of their

mission and vision.

Marcos Witt: They will be like me...

The consumer neo-Pentecostal churches have been leaders

namein Nicaraguas Hosanna, Honduras Abundant Life,El Salvadors COMPAZ Ministry and Guatemalas El Shaddaihave to be able to satisfy ex-Sandinista army officers andformer Ultreya regulars, in addition to former fighters inGuatemalas Guerilla Army of the Poor and admirers ofMarcel Lefebvre. In other words, they have to cater to peoplefrom the most diverse backgrounds. Symbolic and discursiveshallowness is one of the keys to Neo-Pentecostal success.The more devoid of socio-political content the sermons, morecommon and average the proposed goals and more hieraticthe churches look, the more members they will catch in theirnets. If Nietzsche, Marx, Weber and Freud were prophetswho revealed the worlds disenchantment, the entrepre-neurial Neo-Pentecostal pastors have been the championsand executors of the de-sacralizing of religious spaces.

From the point of view of the protagonists, that de-sacralization could reflect the aspiration to live a faithexpressed with little or no resorting to religious institu-tionalization, an idea that can be seen in the declarations of

Reverend Moiss Fuentes from Brooklyn, New YorksCandelero de oro Pentecostal Church in 2007: Im notreligious. I dont like religion; religion obstructs, hinders.And the more legalist, traditional and inflexible a religionis, the more deadly, the more destructive it is. Im nottalking to you about the testimony of a religion, Im talkingto you about the testimony of Gods pure Gospel. I amtalking to you about a relationship with God. Im not justtalking to you about a system of liturgies and of religiouscustoms and of traditions. Im talking to you about a way oflife, about a culture. The Gospel is a culture, the culture ofthe Kingdom of God.

However, in the practice of the Neo-Pentecostal churches,

that liberation from religious paraphernalia didnt implyany liberation from earthly bonds or the creation of a culturespecifically corresponding to the Gospel. It didnt presumethe absence of religious apparatus extolled by Fuentes. Itwasnt a kind of pre-Roman Christianity or atheist seculari-


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47october 2012

Prosperity through the correct positive

attitude is the recurring prescription in

all of Mark Witts sermons. Does it

work? The pastors are living proof thatit does

at recognizing Latinos as a growing population important tothe current and future growth of their churches. In 2010,Hybels invited President Obama to talk about immigrationreform. Lakewood Church went even further. Since 2002,Marcos Wittlegally Jonathan Mark Witt Holder, born inSan Antonio, Texashas been the pastor of the 6,000 Latinoswho attend that churchs services. As their preacher, Witt

prescribes positive thinking for them to respond to thedisdain and persecution to which undocumented immigrantsare subjected, the low salaries they beg for and the low-classneighborhoods to which they are confined: Have you everbeen looked down on? Have you ever been disdained? Havethey said pee-yoo to you? Have they cast you aside? Ah!Look, dont be upset because theyve disdained you sometime, because the Bible says that if youve been looked downon, theyve done you a great favor: theyve put you on the listof people who are now candidates to be used by God. Everytime someone looks down on you, thank them. Why? Becausenow you can be used by God. Say to them: God is going touse me powerfully. Im a warrior, brave. So please, lookdown on me some more. God is going to use your family.Youre going to have money. Youre going to have a position.

Prosperity through the correct positive attitude is therecurring prescription in all of Mark Witts sermons. Does itwork? The pastors are living proof that it does. When I wasa young boy I was known as pee-pee boy, says Witt, who wassubjected to cries of pee-yoo! many times. And now hes amusician; composer; singer; author of ten books; speaker;pastor with a congregation of 6,000; four-time Latin Grammywinner for the Best Christian Album; founder of the CanZionInstitute, which has 28 campuses in 10 countries; and ownerof CanZion Productions, which has recorded 30 CDs and sold

over 10 million copies in the United States and LatinAmerica. Millions have listened to his talks.Marcos Witt is the message: the pee-pee boy turned

religious music magnate. The fact is that theres a markeddifference between yesterdays preachers and the newgeneration of mellifluous tongues. In the irresistible oratoryof Zwingli, Luther, Bossuet or the Cur of Ars, the preachingcentered on Jesus Christ. The new preachers have putthemselves at the center of their discourse. InJoel Osteen asCultural Selfobject, Christine Miller and Nathan Carlinanalyze how Osteen has turned himself into a cultural objectwho can heal his followers self-esteem.

They preach about themselves

The notion of self-object was developed by psychoanalystHeinz Kohut, based on the discovery that each personsenvironment consists of cultural goods that come to form

part of his or her own identity. In the extreme absence ofcultural goods in his or her immediate environment, theindividual looks for them and assimilates them as part of hisor her own being. For example, to compensate for the lack ofcultural objects in their immediate environment, Afro-Americans from marginal neighborhoods create identity-bestowing objects such as basketball players, boxers and great

athletes through a remedial action. An idealized fatherfigure, a sportsperson, a pastor, serve to generate cohesion ina group and build identity.

According to Miller and Carlin, thats what the Neo-Pentecostal faithful are looking for: People dont go toLakewood to learn about the Bible intellectually oracademically. They go, rather, to be restoredemotionallyand spiritually. They go to be transformed. They go to findtheir best self. Thats why the theological content ofOsteens messages isnt as important as his personal andaffirming presence in them.

Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria are beautiful, well-educated suburbanites who live in a lovely house. They arethe perfect example of Osteens message to the UnitedStates: following Jesus Christ is profitable. Osteen and Wittpresent themselves as prime examples of idealizingtransferences, so the faithful will fuse with them. HaroldCaballeros of El Shaddai and Cash Luna of the House of Godin Guatemala; Ren Pealba of the International ChristianCenter (CCI), Misael Argealof the Harvest, Mario Barahonaof My Vineyard and Evelio Reyes of Abundant Life inHonduras; Carlos Rivas of the International RevivalTabernacle in El Salvador; and Arsenio Herrera of Hosannain Nicaragua all emulate him. They talk about themselvesand lock away the Christ of the Gospels in the chest of obsolete

junk. Cash Luna is an outstanding disciple of Osteen, with akind of intuitive knowledge of Stanislavsky. He knows whathe has to put into the building of his character, of himself ascharacter. But in terms of being a cultural object in himself,hes bettered by the Salvadoran Vladimir Rivas, whocertainly didnt beat about the bush in generating a cult tohimself, naming his ministry the Vladimir Rivas Mini-


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48envo

CENTRAL AMERICA

stries. As a banner on his web page declares, VladimirRivas has got it all.

The topics these pastors address are themselves and theincidents involved in their success. They cultivate a militantnarcissism. These gurus ascend to the kingdom of screens,where they are incorporated into the being of their admirers.Their followers take on their elegance, their fights and theiritinerary for reaching stardom. They acquire momentaryconfidence in being able to lose weight, overcome anaddiction, get a promotion, or successfully apply for a job....But given that there are always unsatisfied expectations,the flipside to this dynamic is that they will become eternally

dependent on their identity-bestowing objects. In otherwords, the remedial action can last for the rest of theirlives.

This search for identity-bestowing objects forms the basisof the links between Lakewood Church and the CentralAmerican Neo-Pentecostal churches. Harold Caballeros didhis training in Lakewood Church in 1981, when he was stillworking as a lawyer. His mentor was Joels father, JohnOsteen, the founder of Lakewood Church. Caballeros andhis wife Cecilia were ordained there in November 1982.Marcos Witt is a frequent visitor to El Shaddai and Hosanna,where his talks are highly publicized. These churches webpages declare the same mission and vision, formulated with

the same vagueness, as Lakewood Churchs web page: toform disciples of Christ and send them out to preach. EvelioReyes, Cash Luna and Marcos Witt were celebrated as thegreatest American evangelists at the Ibero-AmericanLeadership Congress Passing the Torch.

The leaders of Hosanna in Nicaragua; El Shaddai, theHouse of God and Christian Fraternity in Guatemala; theInternational Revival Tabernacle and the COMPAZ Ministryin El Salvador; the International Harvest Ministry, theAp ostoli c and Prop hetic My Vineyard Minist ry, theInternational Christian Center, the House of the Potter, theMeeting of the Lord, the New Canticle Church, the

International Shalom Ministry and Abundant Life inHonduras, all clone Osteen and Witts sermons. Theirchurches promotional brochures are sprinkled with a hostof Caucasian youths, examples of success par excellencebecause, as Carlos Monsivis says of the CEO mentality, theFirst World is the realest reality.

Mega-churches with

mega-business marketing

Lakewood has become a kind of Neo-Pentecostal Rome,disseminating positive thinking and the virtues of entre-preneurial managerialism. Christian entrepreneurialismisnt new to the end of the 20th century. The faith businesshas a long history in the United States, from Jimmy Swaggartand his $150 million in profits during the eighties, toKenneth Hagin (1917-2003), who peddled Jesus for nearly70 years from the Southern Baptist Church. Oral Robertssowed faith and harvested a fortune. How I Learned JesusWas Not Poor occupies a prominent place among his manybooks. US Christianity is organized as a series of corporations.What secular corporation can compete with these business-people, who are offering the most valuable, in fact priceless,article: eternal salvation?

In the book Exit Interviews, William D. Hendricks

sustains that what distinguishes todays mega-church isnot size but strategy. Indeed, size is merely a function ofstrategy. In marked contrast to the traditional way of doingchurch, the mega-church operates with a marketingmentality: who is our customer and how can we meet his orher needs? Those denominational executives who askthemselves this question and respond to it correctly end upwith a mega-church. And this, according to Cook, is becausemega-churches aim at highly mobile, well educatedconsumers who are from the middle classes launch the kindof marketing campaigns these consumer devotees are usedto. For Cook, mega-churches treat their organizations asbusinesses with something to market. Therefore, it is not

unusual that the mega-church itself is operated, marketedand governed in a businesslike fashion.

Hybels really showed that churches can use marketingprinciples and still be authentic, says Rice Universitysociology professor Michael Emerson, who has studied mega-

If the syncretism of the primitive

Christian church was achieved by

incorporating the new dogmas and

beliefs into pagan rites and Roman

institutions, the current syncretism

assimilates marketing and the new

artifacts of communication that have

generated so many benefits in the

worldly world of non-religious show

business


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49october 2012

PastorPreneur: Outreach Beyond

Business as Usual isa manual to get

pastors thinking like businesspeople,

encouraging them to establish

partnerships with non-religious groups

and use marketing techniques to

attract new members

churches. If the syncretism of the primitive Christian churchwas achieved by incorporating the new dogmas and beliefsinto pagan rites and Roman institutions, the currentsyncretism assimilates marketing and the new artifacts ofcommunication that have generated so many benefits in theworldly world of non-religious show business.

Getting pastors to think

like businesspeople

Supporting the growth of the churches is a business in itself.Thats why the publicity agency Kingdom Ventures, whosemission is to help faith organizations grow bigger, workswith 10,000 churches in a broad range of activities fromevent planning (providing speakers and artists) to fundraisingand facilitating high-tech advances, particularly newaudiovisual and sound system equipment.

And if this wasnt enough, Kingdom Ventures recentlypublished the book PastorPreneur: Outreach BeyondBusiness as Usual, which caused glorious hysteria inChristian bookshops. Its a manual to get pastors thinkinglike businesspeople, encouraging them to establishpartnerships with non-religious groups and use marketingtechniques to attract new members. These techniques haveproven successful in the evangelization field. Most of thegroups post a calendar of their events on their web site andannounce the sale of books, CDs and DVDs, as well as askingfor on-line donations.

These strategies are producing results. The tithes inLakewood Church have made Olympian jumps, from $50 to$70 million between 2005 and 2008 alone. Osteen statesand hes not lyingthat the financial crisis didnt affect its

collections. Although the yield per individual and per familydid drop, the tithes have shown sustained growth due to theincrease in members. As a good positive thinker, Osteensview is that the best is yet to come: My philosophy is thatthat $95 million will be nothing compared to what well dowhen we have 100,000 people. The growth of his church(an annual average of 57%) was much faster than that of oneof the biggest Neo-Pentecostal churches in the world, theUniversal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universaldo Reino de Deus), which jumped from 269,000 to 2 millionfollowers in 1991-2000, at an annual average of 54%. Apromising future of milk, honey and dollars awaits LakewoodChurch.

When questioned about his wealth, Joel Osteen, who isa prolific author with over 45 bestsellers, responded ratherequivocatingly that God has blessed me with more moneythan I could imagine from my books. Your Best Life Now,one of his first fruits, sold over 5 million copies, and he was

given an advance of $13 million for one of his latest successes,Become a Better You, whose 3-million print run was one ofthe biggest ever for a first edition hardback.

Discover the champion inside you

Religious books have been a source of pecuniary blessing fora long time now. Gore Vidal registered as much whenreferring to certain books: Celebrity-sinner books are soldby the millions through hundreds of bookstores and dozensof book clubs that cater to fundamentalist Christians. Lastyear over $600 million worth of Christian books were soldin the United States. Watergate criminals are also indemand. When the inspiring Charles Colson (author ofBornAgain) and the inspired Jeb S. Magruder (author ofAnAmerican Life) confess to all sorts of small sins and crimesnot unlike those that Shakespeares Cardinal Wolsey sang ofin his final aria, the audience is able to enjoy if not pity and

awe a certain amount of catharsis.But Osteen obviously doesnt owe his fortune to his giftfor writing alone. He sold the patronage of each seat in his14,000-capacity stadium-sanctuary for US$2,500. In thearticle Joel Osteen: The Prosperity Gospels Cover Boy inthe confessional magazine Christian Sentinel,Jackie Alnorreported that in the area of financial success Osteen, whoseslogan is Discover the champion inside you, has no reasonto envy Malibu celebrities, informatics stars or the bigwinners of the bank collapses described inInside Job. Shepresents him as the most rising star in the world of positivemotivational Christianity, fusing the style of Tony Robbinswith the looks of Richard Gere; the eloquence of the

managerial guru with the charm of the actor. Osteen lives inaccordance with the prosperous life he preaches: in a housevalued at US$1.25 million. And he says he owes it all to hispositive thinking: We can obtain what we want from Godthrough faith-filled words.


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50envo

CENTRAL AMERICA

The mega-churches average income in

2003 was estimated at $4.8 million, a

tidy sum for those who also have the

privilege of being tax-exempt

entertain more and more loyal followers. Their purposeexpanding the faithgoes hand in hand with a happycollateral effect: expanding the profits. The mega-churchesaverage income in 2003 was estimated at $4.8 million, atidy sum for those who also have the privilege of being tax-exempt. They are the children of Elmer Gantry, the characterfrom Sinclair Lewiss novel of the same name (1927): a cynical

alcoholic who is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister,eventually becomes a Methodist minister and makes afortune as an itinerant preacher.

To be financially prosperous

This entrepreneurial and managerial spirit is coming toCentral America. Its symptoms can be detected in eachproduct of Central American Neo-Pentecostalism. TheHosanna temple in Nicaragua produces a weekly bulletin. Ihave the one dated January 8, 2012. Its a sheet of paperfolded to give four sides, with the national colors of blue andwhite predominant. A positive slogan stands out: WithGod, the impossible doesnt exist! The offer of $30 baptismclasses in the School of new believers is the only ad I couldidentify as properly confessional. The rest of the space isdedicated to the cult of managerialism and other pecuniarytopics: a diploma course in human talent management witha managerial curriculum, a conference for young adults onhow to have a healthy financial life and a businessseminar advertised with an image of young executives insuits and ties positioning gigantic jigsaw pieces.

The Christian Fraternity of Guatemala, popularly knownas the Mega-frater, is the biggest Neo-Pentecostal temple inboth Guatemala and Central America. It couldnt be any

other way as Neo-Pentecostal temples are a gauge of the sizeand prosperity of the middle classes in each country, inrelation to which Guatemala ranks top and Nicaragua bottom.The Mega-frater cost $29 million. One minor detail: itscomplex of 113,000 square meters can accommodate 12,000devotees per shift, who will pay those millions and manymore besides through their tithes: big is profitable. Accordingto Jorge H. Lpez, its founder and main pastor, We wantedit to be something majestic as a testimony to society thatEvangelicals can put up dignified and big buildings inGuatemala, as a reflection of all their potential.

Jorge H. Lpez is autor of Cmo salir de la crisisfinanciera [How to get out of the financial crisis]. He presents

it has an approach based on the Word of God to reduce theeconomic impotence to which people see themselvessubjected as a result of credit purchases, laziness, superfluousspending, greed and the desire to have more, which leadthem to financial chaos as the result of debt. It is also a

This reworking of Calvinismyour prosperity proclaimsthe authenticity of your faithomits the sacred role thatpolitical skills and connections play in Evangelical prosperityand the accumulation of talent. In 2004, Lakewood Churchreached an agreement to lease the old NBA sanctuary for a60-year period, paying $13 million in cash for the first 30years rent. Before disbursing a penny more, fortune smiled

on him: on March 31, 2010, the Houston City Council voted13 to 2 for the city to definitively cede the land to the churchfor just US$7.5 million. Later, Osteen invested $95 millionin outfitting the premises, a task that included purchasingand installing a 32 x 18-foot screen and two twin waterfallsthat rise and fall in front of a revolving golden globe and apulpit from which Osteensavaged by critics for hissuperficial theology, as he lacks any theological educationinvites his followers to remain positive, filled with the samezeal as those who in days gone by preached purity, cleanlinessof heart or the three cardinal virtues.

Churches similar to corporations

Analyzing these and other trajectories of pastorpreneursin Christian Capitalism: Megachurches, Megabusinesses,

Luisa Kroll concludes that maybe the churches arent sodifferent from corporations. Their businesses are enormouslyvaried. World Changers Ministries, for example, managesboth a music and a graphic design studio and has its ownrecord label. New Birth Missionary Baptist Church has athree-dimensional special effects chief for its web site, whichoffers videos at the publics request, and publishes amagazine. The Second Baptist Church of Houston, whose22,723 members give it the sixth largest membership in theUnited States, has a modern cathedral the size of an airportterminalthe 21st Century Worship Centerwhich cost $34million and was then remodeled at a cost of over $8 millionmore. Its vast domains also include various gyms, bookshops,

cafeterias, a primary school and a free car repair service forsingle mothers. It has an annual budget of $53 million.

These are some of the mega-businesses of the mega-churches led by pastors who act like executives and usemarketing tactics to capture and the skills of a showman to


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51october 2012

Like Hybels and Osteen, the leaders of

Central American Neo-Pentecostalism

talk about incentives and added value.

Pecuniary topics and the world of

finance are as present in their sermons

as the fires of hell and the Archangel

Gabriel were in sermons a century ago

practical guide to identifying the enemies that impedefulfillment of the Lords promises to be prosperous, andteaches a life built on the firm basis of purchasing in cashand on how to confront worry and embarrassment when theycause dejection. Calvin must be smiling in his grave!

Another book penned by Lpez isFrmulas bblicas paraprosperar (Biblical formulas for prospering): It is an

invitation to travel the biblical paths sustained by the willof God and a clear answer to those questions that arise whenone is living in adverse financial circumstances, when we arein crisis, when we are in debt. Step by step, sermon bysermon, you will receive the necessary understanding to befreed from your finances and know how to free yourself fromany chain of economic oppression.

There is no great distance between this offer and thekind made by life-coach speakers or CEOs rallying theirteams. As Barbara Ehrenreich said, A positive message notonly sold better to the public than the old-time religionbut also had a growing personal relevance to pastors, whoincreasingly came to see themselves not as critics of the secular,materialistic world but as players within itbusinessmenor, more precisely, CEOs.

Now they talk of added value

rather than heaven and hell

The books on offer at Ren Pealbas International ChristianCenter follow the same trend. One that particularly standsout is Principios bblicos para una administracin eficaz[Biblical principles for effective administration], whichincludes a training plan and even a printed diploma anddevelops the following topics, among others: We are all

administrators, Administration from a biblical perspective,A God that delegates the administration of his resources,God as responsible for our prosperity and eager for us to havean abundance of resources

Also up there is Vladimir Rivas and his cry for FinancialFreedom and the International Revival Tabernacle withthe seminar offered by the famous international life coachAlex Marvel in 2011 during the celebrations of the churchstenth anniversary. Guatemalas El Shaddai offers Spanishversions of the following books: Strategic Plan forTransformation by Alistair P. Petrie;Authority in Heaven,Authority on Earth by Tom Marshall; The 4:8 Principle: TheSecret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tommy Newberry; and Cents &

Sensibility: How Couples Can Agree about Money by Bethanyand Scott Palmer, among many other examples showing thatthe cross and the billfold are the new neocolonial binomial.

Everything is practical in the San Pablo University,explained the receptionist at the university, which has

Caballeros as its rector and is located in the El Shaddaicomplex. Theres a notable pragmatism to its curriculum,which hits the bulls-eye in the business world: Marketingand Sales Management: Highly innovative major that is arequisite for organizations competitiveness. BusinessManagement and Entrepreneurship: A major that developsprofessionals with an entrepreneurial spirit, capable of

managing a national or international organization.Investment: 32,500 quetzals (approximately US$4,148).

Its the preferential option for entrepreneurs. In othertimes, not as far off chronologically as psychologically, thatlittle university would have concentrated on Bible courses.The most worldly teachers would have gone there to offertraining on rhetorical skills. But the Bible is no longereverything. We cant talk about fundamentalism orLutheranism anymore. Faith alone isnt enough. What wereseeing is a sacralizing of capitalism at levels Weber neverdreamed of. To paraphrase Gramsci, why call themuniversities and religious temples rather than businessschools?

The managerial discourse has permeated to the verybones of neo-Pentecostalism, both in the United States andin Central America. Bill Hybels was an admirer of PeterDrucker and hung a poster quoting the business expertoutside the entrance to his office: What is our business?Who is our customer? What does the customer considervalue? Like Hybels and Osteen, the leaders of CentralAmerican Neo-Pentecostalism talk about incentives andadded value. Pecuniary topics and the world of finance are aspresent in their sermons as the fires of hell and the ArchangelGabriel were in sermons a century ago. More realistic windsare blowing.

Jesus wasnt poor!

Its not just a question of sermons and books, or of giantstages that look like the auditoriums of prosperous


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52envo

CENTRAL AMERICA

The managerial abilities that lead one

along the narrow pathways of

prosperity are frequently associated

withor reinforced bypositive

thinking. In fact, what is often

attributed to positive thinking was

actually the result of the pastors

penetrating business sense

corporations in both design and ornamentation. The verylifestyle and strategies of the Neo-Pentecostal pastors alsoseek to exactly replicate the entrepreneurial CEOs who havemade a fortune through their managerial abilities.

From his pulpit in the House of God, Cash Luna,flaunting the whole lifestyle and income of a CEO, talksabout the devil, but not in the old style. The devil that Cashrails in numerous sermons against is the internal demonthat whispers Its wrong to prosper. Against that demonhe declares the conviction that God wants to bless you, Hewants your soul, your body, your economy to prosper. It is hisdesire. So let your Father bless you! It is Gods will for yoursoul, your body, your economy to prosper. One of the thingsyou must learn is that being prosperous is not so much yourdesire, but rather you Fathers desire.

With his Christian Fraternity, Jorge H. Lpezs projectwas to found a church that would turn the mentality that aChristian has to be poor, ignorant and with no influence insociety into a thing of the past. In this new view, opposingprosperity and social climbing amounts to opposing the divinewill. It is a curse. Low salaries, unemployment and labormistreatment are just excuses devised by the devil. A positiveattitude and managerial skills are enough to unmask anycunning arguments and destroy evil.

I hear Satans voice whispering to me: But, what aboutJesus? They say he was poor? Was he accursed? What anoutlandish idea! The exegete Cash illuminates us with asubtle distinction worthy of Thomas Aquinas: He didnt

live in accursedness, he became a curse for us; he took thesin, the sickness, lived under the curse, became accursed,but didnt live under a curse. In terms of prospering, was hepoor? No! He became poor. They are two very differentthings.

In this neo-Calvinism, prosperity isnt an option; its anobligation. The prosperity that God gives us, Cash insists, isthe product of an ordered life. A disordered life will notprosper. If you give tithes and offerings, God gives to you.But if you squander it, the devil takes it from you. This isthe most explicit condemnation of poverty, branding it asthe opprobrious outcome of a disordered life. And it is also

the easiest shortcut for Cash to say Your prosperity is mine,through tithes.

The insistence on tithes is common to the Neo-Pentecostal churches. In the International Christian Center,when I asked for leaflets on their activities and purposes, allI could get were little tithe request envelopes bearingphrases from one of Pauls letters to the Corinthians justifyingtheir insistence: They gave as much as they were able, andeven beyond their ability; Each of you should give whatyou have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly orunder compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Harold Caballeros:

Think positively, think big

The managerial abilities that lead one along the narrowpathways of prosperity are frequently associated withorreinforced bypositive thinking. In fact, what is oftenattributed to positive thinking was actually the result of thepastors penetrating business sense.

Guatemalan Harold Caballeros swears that, on the vergeof bankruptcy, he prayed and prayed until God sent him adevote buyer who wanted to earn a place in heaven by payingEl Shaddai a fortune for a devalued plot of land. With thetotal amount from the sale, Caballeros was able to acquire

his congregations new headquarters in a better placed area,take care of his financial solvency problems and send out anunequivocal sign of the blessing El Shaddai had received.

A whole masterly speculation move disguised as suddendivine intervention resulting from positive thinking: Weagreed to meet earlier to pray. When the interested partiesarrived, the meeting went normally until the moment camefor the expected question: How much do you want for theproperty, pastor? And I listened in surprise as exactly doublethe amount we were originally expecting came out of mymouth.

Jorge H. Lpez of the Guatemalan Christian Fraternitywhose slogan is love, power and ordermust also have

received some blessing or unusual illumination to jump frommeetings of 22 people in 1978 in the Holiday Innat thattime the Hotel Fiestato the Camino Real Hotel and thenseven months later to the hall of the Reform Cinema andfinally on to buy a 3.5-acre plot of land on the edge of the


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53october 2012

Roosevelt Calzada road in 1985. By 1991, the church hadinaugurated a four-story building, bought another plot ofland measuring over 17 acres in San Cristbal and finishedbuilding an auditorium for over 12,000 people, with parkingfor 2,531 vehicles.

Gods very lucrative businessesWith fewer resources but no less managerial talent, thefaithful from the International Revival Tabernacle were alsodistinguished. Born in 2001, it had attracted so manyfollowers where the fire of the Spirit burns in just fouryears that they were able to contribute funds between thenand 2008 to pay for a 3.5 acre plot in San Salvadorwhereeven junk costs an arm and a legand start building a churchvalued at $3 million. According to its web page, the TAIInternational Complex was inaugurated by none other thanPresident Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena, before the gazeof some 50,000 people who followed this miracle in theirown homes on television, radio and Internet, all of whichbroadcast the event live. Gods businesses are as lucrativeas those of the most seasoned speculators. The children ofthe light have more entrepreneurial talent than the childrenof darkness.

Another demonstration of Caballeros managerial talentis his painstaking cultivation of a club of friends. Itssomething they now call social capital management. Yearsago, the humble origin of Pentecostalisms leaders andsympathizers made it easier to discredit them. RetiredGeneral and former de facto President of Guatemala EfranRos Montt, a minister of the California-based PentecostalChurch of the Word, raised the bar, but the effectiveness of

his genocidal scorched earth operations and his prestige as ahardline statesman were not enough to win Pentecostalisma strategic place among the dominant groups, plus which hewas ahead of his time in the mega-church timeline. Thathonor goes to the El Shaddai leader, Caballeros, whomaintains that he has 17,290 voluntary contributors whohelp him economically in rural and urban areas, includingDiego Pulido, the manager of the Industrial Bank; JaimeArimany, former president of the Coordinating Committeeof Associations of Agriculture, Commerce, Industry andFinances (CACIF); and Adrin Zapata, who was once aguerrilla fighter. Anything goes.

How can we reconcile the binomial of lvaro Pop, a

Qeqchi indigenous leader, and Cromwell Cuestas, a top Volvoofficial in Central America and El Shaddai member datingback to its foundation? Only the Neo-Pentecostal faith seemsable to bring together what politics, wars and racism gavebirth to in separation and raised in confrontation. Cuestas

provides us the key to the sex appeal of Caballeros, thathomogenizing alchemist of irreconcilable ingredients:Harold sees things where nobody else sees them. He isntself-conscious: he teaches to think big.

Calvin reborn: The idolatry of money

Waving his Harvard masters degree, Caballeros is betterequipped than other Neo-Pentecostal pastors to conceptuallyelaborate the marriage between the Bible and the billfold.First he traced the historical origin of the condemnation ofwealth: Ibero-Catholic culture and its theological paradigm,whose condemnation of all economic transactions leading topersonal profit only managed to reduce us to poverty.

The second step was to show how the Calvinist aporiacan be resolved: Calvin believed in predestination. With thenumber of chosen people predetermined from the beginningof time and material prosperity an indicator of divine favor,why make any effort? Why be good? Why work? Well, toshow that one was among the predestined, of course. Thedoctrine of predestination, which with a different ideological

inflection would have been fatalistic and paralyzing, workedfor Calvin and is working for Caballeros as a powerfulincentive for appropriate behavior and thoughts.

Harold Caballeros, Jorge Lpez, Ren Pealba andArsenio Hernndez dont insist as much on prosperity asCash Luna, Vladimir Rivas and Evelio Reyes. But all ofthem venerate entrepreneurialism and emphasize mana-gerial abilities, elevated to the rank of theological virtues, ashappened in days gone by with the three classic virtues offaith, hope and charity. And certainly, their practice has ledthem to prosperous vineyards, abundant life and opulenttabernacles.

Calvinism has been reborn with new determination in

Neo-Pentecostalism. Lets take a look at how much theRenaissance version dovetails with its present manifes-tations. According to German philosopher Ernst Bloch, inCalvinism the active ego is strong and responsible andremains active precisely and with much greater reason where

Only the Neo-Pentecostal faith seems

able to bring together what politics,

wars and racism gave birth to in

separation and raised in confrontation


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54envo

CENTRAL AMERICA

The Neo-Pentecostal creed and its

irresponsible magic optimism provide

lethal hallucinogens that make people

believe in the possibility of ever-

imminent success in the world of shaky

economic structures in Central

America, with its scandalously unequal

social and economic structures

it feels chosen. Individuals dont have to realize themselvesseparately from the effort and work that lead to the greaterglory of God, to which end they grant God the needed energy

and will. For Bloch, the chosen come to feel more securelyfree in earthly work because once they have been the objectof grace they cant lose that state. Divine justification, theonly presumable indication of positive predestination, is thusonly revealed in self-discipline, energy and coherence ofworking, as Gods activity operating unceasingly within thebeliever. This is particularly true for business success, a visiblereward for that work, not for depth and fervor of feeling orfor the quietist signs of Lutheran mysticism, removed fromand superior to the world. Bloch argues that self-disciplineis the subjective guarantee of the certainty that one has beensaved, while success is the objective guarantee.

If Luther left the world in its abjection, putting it at the

mercy of the princes, moving the soul and his God inward,Calvin preached a bourgeois faith in which Renaissancesecularity is sacralized in the church of Mammon, the moneygod. Luther fell into idolatry of the State; Calvin into idolatryof money.

An irresponsible magical optimism

Zwingli declared laboriousness to be a lifestyle pleasing toGod. But it was the Calvinist ideal of workapplied to theconsumerthat led to wealth having to be increased for itsown sake. Pauls idea of having nothing, yet possessing (2Corinthians 6:10), which according to Bloch was also practicedby monks-turned-traders and men of business who acted as

Gods executors or treasurers, did away with the scruplesrooted in primitive Christianity and encouraged theunrestricted cult to accumulation that the flourishingcapitalist economy required.

Through a similar mechanism, Neo-Pentecostalismsideology of prosperity has swept away the last Christianscruples over money and placed itself at the opposite pole toprimitive Christianity with theological bestsellers such asJesus Was Never Poor and God Wants You ToBe Rich.Chemically pure Calvinism and Neo-Pentecostal Calvinismjustify economic inequality. But the Calvinist demolition ofscruples could be verified at the dawn of a series oftechnological transformations whose promising future waspalpable and gloomy consequencesenvironmental devasta-tionless perceptible. Way in the distance, the welfare Stateand relative labor stability could be seen allowing plans tobe made with manageable levels of uncertainty.

In contrast, the Neo-Pentecostal creed and itsirresponsible magic optimism provide lethal hallucinogensthat make people believe in the possibility of ever-imminentsuccess in a world of shaky economic structures. In CentralAmerica, a world of scandalously unequal social and economicstructures, they act as an opiate, the crack of our peoples.

To be continued

Jos Luis Rocha is a member of the envo editorial counciland consultant researcher for NITLAPAN-UCA.

Central America Neo Pentecostals 4 ING JLR Oct

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