By DAVID VAN BIEMA Friday, Oct. 03, 2008
Jackson/译
Last Exit
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Majority Whip James Claburn and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer head to a press conference on Monday afternoon.
所谓的“成功福音论”，让他的追随者们成为金融发展中最乐意的参与者，但目前，却是金融危机的受害者？这就是五旬节教派会的学者所认为的。Jonathan Walton是加州大学河滨分校的研究宗教学的教授，他说，当查询一本关于福音派的书，他意识到，福音派的宗旨就是，上帝会为贫穷的人们“开辟”一条道路，让他们能在人生中享受更好的东西——但这条思想，也衍生了危机，这危机便在此次次贷事件中爆发出来。Walton说这些被福音思想所激励的传道人，即使知道抵押物存在风险，但是他们还是相信“上帝会使银行忽视我的信用积分，并保佑我能买到第一座房子。”这样做的结果，他接着说，“是会酿成大祸的，因为他非常有可能使那些教区居民不再向上帝祈祷，转而向贪婪的房产经纪人祈祷。”
也有其他人也同意Walton的观点，Anthea Butler说。Anthea Butler是纽约罗彻斯特大学一位专家，他是研究五旬节教派会的。“牧师是不会对你说，‘去美联银行贷款’，但是，我听说过， 即使你有很差的信用记录，上帝依然会保佑你借贷成功——如果你能诚心一点（所谓的诚心就是为教堂捐款），你就可以买到那套房子，或是那辆车，或是那间公寓。”J. Lee Grady，《Charisma》杂志的编辑也说到：“当然，这种情况是会愈演愈烈，演变到后来变成，传教士和你说，‘如果你能捐款，上帝就会送你套房子。’当他们真的能借贷成功，买到了房子，人们就认为，捐款真的能买到房子。但事实上，这是银行政策实施不当造成的这种假象。”如果这种现象继续发生，看起来就像是这种对本国宗教的信仰会对美国的经济产生正面的促进作用，但事实上，市场与宗教的相互共生是不健康，这是一种病态的市场经济。
尽管仍是作为五旬节教派会的一种表现形式——“福音理论”，却将自身提升到了一个独特的超现实乐观主义层面上。如果信仰者向上帝证明了他的诚心，就是捐钱给教堂，他们就会收到回报。保持乐观的情绪，把注意力集中在神的信仰上，神就会完成他们的愿望，就像圣经里所说的那样，福气洒满人们。但批评者则认为，这是那些教堂的牧师们想发家致富的诡计而已。还有些其他的专家，像Walton，解释到，抛开这条理论所有的缺陷，它可以让那些身无分文的人感觉拥有财富，甚至知识匮乏的人也感觉到他们可以对社会有贡献，完成自我价值实现的。在一些案例中，这条理论被运用得很成熟，这些人养成了良好的财务习惯，成为了优秀的企业家。
但是，Walton提出，这十年间消费不断膨胀的现象，无疑给福音理论像打了一剂兴奋剂一样。90年代开始的经济爆发和金融业务的不断衍生，使经济发展得欣欣向荣，这似乎证实了福音理论所带来的理念。他最近在他的个人博客和网站“宗教影响”也提到了这一点。“即使我的信用很差，但是上帝依然会让我买到我的第一套房子”，这样的思想很普遍。Sermons说道这种“信用可以过度使用的时机来了”观念取代了理性的经济发展。每个人都拿自己的房子当抵押，把房子变成了自动提款机，去买车，买衣服，去度假。这种行为的危险性却很少有人注意到。
当这个经济泡沫破裂时，Walton和Butler猜测“福音理论”的拥护者受到了很严重的打击，这时，他们就很想看看上帝是否会来救他们。Butler认为一些牧师会褪去他身上的光环，因为支持他的信徒的钱没有了。Walton说道：“你会想到，目前的这种经济条件会让他们的福音理论站不住脚。”但是，Walton预计他们依然会坚持自己的理论，因为上帝会很慷慨，他总是会在最后的时候拉你一把，这也是他如此吸引人的原因。
最近，一位神召会传道人佛罗里达潘撒克拉的布朗斯维（Brownsville Assembly of God, near Pensacola, Fla.）在对信徒进行坚信礼。布朗斯维的神召会甚至都不是一个传统的基督教会，他们注重圣灵的浇灌，而不是对圣经的顶礼膜拜。但是信徒对他牧师的忠心证明了，即使发生了次贷危机事件，这种信仰疗法依然很流行。“上个礼拜天，你说，每个人也许都需要一个奇迹来使生活有个盼头。而我真的就是这样的。我那时一直收到那些抵押物被没收的文件，我欲哭无泪，后来我让你为我家房子的照片进行涂油礼，你这样做了，并且你妻子也加入了祈祷的行列。我回家后感觉有好的事情要发生了。礼拜五，就是9月5号，我的抵押放款公司打电话给我，说接下来三个月，我每月只需还款200美元，我一般每个月都要还1020美元的，噢，谢天谢地，感谢主的仁慈和恩惠。”
祈祷信用市场不要再进一步缩进银根了。
Has the so-called Prosperity gospel turned its followers into some of the most willing participants — and hence, victims — of the current financial crisis? That's what a scholar of the fast-growing brand of Pentecostal Christianity believes. While researching a book on black televangelism, says Jonathan Walton, a religion professor at the University of California at Riverside, he realized that Prosperity's central promise — that God will "make a way" for poor people to enjoy the better things in life — had developed an additional, dangerous expression during the subprime-lending boom. Walton says that this encouraged congregants who got dicey mortgages to believe "God caused the bank to ignore my credit score and blessed me with my first house." The results, he says, "were disastrous, because they pretty much turned parishioners into prey for greedy brokers."
Others think he may be right. Says Anthea Butler, an expert in Pentecostalism at the University of Rochester in New York: "The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.' " Adds J. Lee Grady, editor of the magazine Charisma: "It definitely goes on, that a preacher might say, 'If you give this offering, God will give you a house.' And if they did get the house, people did think that it was an answer to prayer, when in fact it was really bad banking policy." If so, the situation offers a look at how a native-born faith built partially on American economic optimism entered into a toxic symbiosis with a pathological market.
Although a type of Pentecostalism, Prosperity theology adds a distinctive layer of supernatural positive thinking. Adherents will reap rewards if they prove their faith to God by contributing heavily to their churches, remaining mentally and verbally upbeat and concentrating on divine promises of worldly bounty supposedly strewn throughout the Bible. Critics call it a thinly disguised pastor-enrichment scam. Other experts, like Walton, note that for all its faults, the theology can empower people who have been taught to see themselves as financially or even culturally useless to feel they are "worthy of having more and doing more and being more." In some cases the philosophy has matured with its practitioners, encouraging good financial habits and entrepreneurship.
But Walton suggests that a decade's worth of ever easier credit acted like a drug in Prosperity's bloodstream. "The economic boom '90s and financial overextensions of the new millennium contributed to the success of the Prosperity message," he wrote recently on his personal blog as well as on the website Religion Dispatches. And not positively. "Narratives of how 'God blessed me with my first house despite my credit' were common. Sermons declaring 'It's your season to overflow' supplanted messages of economic sobriety," and "little attention was paid to ... the dangers of using one's home equity as an ATM to subsidize cars, clothes and vacations."
With the bubble burst, Walton and Butler assume that Prosperity congregants have taken a disproportionate hit, and they are curious as to how their churches will respond. Butler thinks some of the flashier ministries will shrink along with their congregants' fortunes. Says Walton: "You would think that the current economic conditions would undercut their theology." But he predicts they will persevere, since God's earthly largesse is just as attractive when one is behind the economic eight ball.
A recent publicly posted testimony by a congregant at the Brownsville Assembly of God, near Pensacola, Fla., seems to confirm his intuition. Brownsville is not even a classic Prosperity congregation — it relies more on the anointing of its pastors than on Scriptural promises of God. But the believer's note to his minister illustrates how magical thinking can prevail even after the mortgage blade has dropped. "Last Sunday," it read, "You said if anyone needed a miracle to come up. So I did. I was receiving foreclosure papers, so I asked you to anoint a picture of my home and you did and your wife joined with you in prayer as I cried. I went home feeling something good was going to happen. On Friday the 5th of September I got a phone call from my mortgage company and they came up with a new payment for the next 3 months of only $200. My mortgage is usually $1,020. Praise God for his Mercy & Grace."
And pray that the credit market doesn't tighten any further.
附：五旬节教派会，为基督教新的教派之一，19 世纪时发源於美国，此教派的特点是强调直接来自神灵的感应，崇尚信仰疗法。
神召会是五旬节派的教会之一，是美国最大的五旬节教会。