Scary statistic

I ran across this at the heresy:

Of the nation’s 12 largest churches, she [Kate Bowler, a doctoral candidate at Duke University] says, three are prosperity—Osteen’s, which dwarfs all the other megachurches; Tommy Barnett’s, in Phoenix; and T. D. Jakes’s, in Dallas. In second-tier churches—those with about 5,000 members—the prosperity gospel dominates. Overall, Bowler classifies 50 of the largest 260 churches in the U.S. as prosperity. The doctrine has become popular with Americans of every background and ethnicity; overall, Pew found that 66 percent of all Pentecostals and 43 percent of “other Christians”—a category comprising roughly half of all respondents—believe that wealth will be granted to the faithful.

<idle musing>
This is a perversion of the gospel, pure and simple. Jesus calls us to die to self, not to live for material gain—I Timothy 6:5 comes to mind: διαπαρατριβαὶ διεφθαρμένων ἀνθρώπων τὸν νοῦν καὶ ἀπεστερημένων τῆς ἀληθείας, νομιζόντων πορισμὸν εἶναι τὴν εὐσέβειαν.
and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (NRSV)

I think that's pretty accurate, depraved in mind and bereft of the truth.
</idle musing>