Barbelith Underground > Temple > Creflo Dollar and World Changers Church international

i was reading this article in the New Yorker about the Christian preacher and "prosperity theologian" Creflo Dollar. basically, he's set up a ministry on the model of a corporate enterprise which sort of combines a lot of black uplift thinking with evangelical Christianity, a self-help/management guru shtick, and a sort of entrepreneurial zeal. he argues essentially that faith in God requires you to change the way you think and believe in empowering yourself and becoming successful in life, which is evidenced by financial prosperity. he believes that Christianity and the Bible are like a toolkit to success for believers, and he breaks it down into self-help style multiple step programs which he promises will make you wealthy. he also draws on pop culture, specifically hip-hop, by drawing in celebrity endorsements from people like Ma$e and 50 Cent.

the first thing that struck me is that he places an awful lot of emphasis on the mystical/spiritual power of language and belief to transform everyday life. a big part of his ministry involves speaking in tongues. he also tells his followers to read specific Scripture verses aloud and to believe in their power to make them wealthy. he seems to also have techniques for breaking curses and stuff like that.

upon further investigation, it seems that a lot of other evangelicals are frothing at the mouth over his teaching that we are "small 'g' gods" and that by receiving anointing as Jesus received anointing, we can be transformed to become some sort of god/man. this puts him at odds with traditional Protestants obviously, but does put him in line with other black new religious empowerment movements like the Five Percenters.

is this guy doing what people in this forum would call magick on a massive scale or is it just me? obviously, the idea that charismatic Christian movements are magickal is nothing new, but this particular blend of several potent strains of practice is really striking to me. the combination of mass collective action, modern self-help and marketing techniques, popular religious imagery, hip-hop, the emphasis on using language and the power of spoken language, the belief in some sort of divine selfhood, and the emphasis on transforming consciousness seems deleriously potent.