The Money Cult

April 18, 2016
Lehmann (Rich People Things) describes, in entertaining and erudite terms, the evolution of a uniquely American Protestantism linked with a uniquely American market capitalism into a "theology of abundance" that exalts wealth, stigmatizes poverty, and regards capital gains as a mark of divine favor. Through a series of spiritual revivals and awakenings and their corresponding economic booms and busts, Lehmann explains how the strong communal vision of the early Puritans gave way to biblical truths more adapted to the market revolution and a rising commercial ethos. The surprisingly early roots of the "intensely individualist American gospel of self-help" flower quite logically, as Lehmann shows, into an evangelical piety that eschews social causes or reform crusades, preferring to sanctify the more market-friendly values of personal striving and portray "worldly gain as the just reward of the faithful." With engaging forays into Mormonism, self-help and management literature, and end-times prophecy, Lehmann persuasively posits the modern prosperity gospel as an inevitable development in the American religious landscape. This book is unlikely to embarrass believers into a social conscience or different political allegiance, but Lehmann does reveal the modern evangelical right as deeply faithful to an American economic modelâone focused on industrial productionâthat no longer exists.

April 1, 2016
A lively study of how the prim Puritans of old, "tireless strivers after divine favor and sticklers for political order," became the mega-churchy materialists of today. The timeworn American Protestant form of discourse is the jeremiad. Bookforum co-editor and Baffler senior editor Lehmann (Rich People Things: Real-Life Secrets of the Predator Class, 2011) avoids that approach in favor of a full among-the-money-changers attack. Those money-changers, sticklers for authority and hierarchy, turn out to be the real subject of his book, from John Winthrop's apologies for inequality to his latter-day heirs. Although they profess to render unto Caesar, many of the leaders of the religious right are Caesar, and their Money Cult, as Lehmann dubs it, equates wealth with spiritual value. Joel Osteen and other dialing-for-dollars preachers have become ascendant in the metamorphosis of the "baser materials of competitive capitalist self-assertion into a kind of saving grace." What's more, by the author's account, they've carried the mainstream with them in this transmutation; the Sermon on the Mount notwithstanding, the dominant view now is that what matters is to come out with the most toys. Lehmann notes that the idea of prosperity promised by the First Awakening, with God providing all that one needs, is very different from the "transcendant abundance" of today, with God providing a shiny new car, a lovely home entertainment system, and enough fine clothes to make the fastidious Osteen, who "believes that God...has selected your car according to his will," proud. Lehmann is careful to document his claims as progress, and though a supporter of the religious right might take issue with the general tenor of his argument, his observations are unimpeachable. One in particular concerns the rich irony attendant in an atheistic social Darwinism, the champion of laissez faire capitalism, becoming the governing creed of the ultrareligious, with no rival movement to contest it. Lehmann makes an important and timely point, which is that American religion has always been about money.

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May 1, 2016

Lehmann (Rich People Things) chronicles the relationship between the American Protestant ethos and its long tradition of self-help gurus, beginning with the New England Puritans and finishing with contemporary figures such as Joel Osteen. Far from being a simple polemic against an easy target, Lehmann provides an in-depth investigation into the social transformation of religious thought. The narrative recounts the communally minded John Winthrop; proceeds through the transformative Great Awakenings; and arrives in the 19th century with the self-made, self-improved, business-minded spirituality familiar to today's culture. Highlighted are the critical sages of this increasingly individualized faith and its market-friendly orientation, including George Whitefield, Joseph Smith, and Billy Graham. Those who pushed against the current of materialized "self-help" religion, such as William Jennings Bryan and Walter Rauschenbusch, are also examined. Some may find Lehmann's frequent descriptor of "gnostic," in regards to individualized spirituality, a bit heavy-handed. "Platonic" or "personal" would have communicated a similar meaning without the controversial associations. VERDICT A thorough, critical, and information-dense history of American "self-help" religion.--Jeffrey Meyer, Mt. Pleasant P.L., IA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2016
Lehmann's intellectual history of the long association between Christian faith and the pursuit of the materially good life makes enthralling reading. If the earliest Puritan and Calvinist settlers aimed to build a model Christian society, the barren (to them) wilderness they'd chosen compelled them to thrive. They came to regard thriving as ipso facto morally superior, which eroded the Protestant cornerstone of salvation by grace. If some prospered more than others, it was because they'd learned something special, perhaps hidden though not inaccessible to most believers. Such occult knowledge lies at the heart of individual salvation urged so successfully in the eighteenth-century Great Awakening, the early nineteenth-century Cane Ridge revival, Mormonism (melding individual and community prosperity), Transcendentalism, the forgotten but very influential Businessman's Revival of 1858, the twentieth-century's nondenominational mass-evangelists, right down to the name-it-and-claim-it prosperity gospels of today. Lehmann is presenting a four-centuries-old historical development, not attacking it, even though he can't help rhetorically asking, now and then, how a particular practice of the money cult he decries squares with the words of Christ.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)