LaVrai – The Truth

"Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace" by Shayne Lee

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I clicked on a link about a Tulane sociologist’s new book on the “spiritual marketplace,” which the author “examines the success of five pastors who are among the most influential contemporary leaders in American Protestantism.” Now, the author wasn’t involved with a theological analysis of these fine folks; he was more interested in seeing how it is they draw such massive crowds and are so wealthy. If you’ve been paying attention, I suppose you may know exactly what it is these “religious suppliers” T.D. Jakes, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen (on the cover), Paul White and Brian McLaren have so very much in common…

First, here’s a product description from Amazon.com:

Joel Osteen, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, Rick Warren, and Brian McLaren pastor some the largest churches in the nation, lead vast spiritual networks, write best-selling books, and are among the most influential preachers in American Protestantism today. Spurred by the phenomenal appeal of these religious innovators, sociologist Shayne Lee and historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere investigate how they operate and how their style of religious expression fits into America’s cultural landscape. Drawing from the theory of religious economy, the authors offer new perspectives on evangelical leadership and key insights into why some religious movements thrive while others decline.

Article excerpt featuring author Shayne Lee:

Supply and demand, that delicate relationship between producers and consumers, is perhaps the central dynamic of a market economy. In an hour when all eyes are fixed on the shifting sands of the financial market, Tulane sociologist Shayne Lee has published a book that applies the economic model of supply and demand to a different kind of commerce.

Holy Mavericks: Evangelical Innovators and the Spiritual Marketplace examines the success of five pastors who are among the most influential contemporary leaders in American Protestantism.

“Our goal was not to provide an objective analysis of these five religious celebrities. Our goal was to explain their appeal,” says Lee, assistant professor of sociology, who co-wrote the book with historian Phillip Luke Sinitiere.

“We used the theory of religious economy to show why some religious suppliers are able to attract large followings while others are not,” says Lee, who in 2005 published T.D. Jakes: America’s New Preacher, a critical examination of the most influential African American preacher on the pulpit today.

Jakes’ ministry is among those analyzed in Holy Mavericks, as are the ministries of Rick Warren, the best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life; Joel Osteen, who preaches to weekly congregations of 40,000 in an arena formerly used by the Houston Rockets; Paula White, who Lee calls the “Oprah Winfrey of the evangelical world;” and Brian McLaren, a leader in the new emergent church movement who is popular with Generation X followers.

“We feel that you could make a case that any of these five could replace Billy Graham as America’s next preacher,” says Lee.

The five also exhibit a kind of entrepreneurial spirit that Lee and Sinitiere argue is at the heart of their success. Each possesses, says Lee, “the ability to understand American culture, to be on the cutting edge of using psychotherapy and aspects in the language and taste of contemporary Americans in order to draw them to their congregations.”

Through this approach to understanding religion as a competitive spiritual marketplace, Lee hopes to put to rest what he says is the misguided “strict-church thesis” employed by sociologists in the past. That thesis essentially explains the success of conservative denominations in the 20th century by suggesting that the constituencies of these faiths, which have more restrictive practices, tend to comprise more dedicated, zealous followers and thus produce more vibrant churches.

“It has nothing to do with strictness,” Lee contends. “None of these five ministries promote strict religion. It has more to do with the evangelical’s ability to address existential needs and the cultural taste of a broad range of contemporary people.”

So, this gentleman basically found that these very popular American pastors have two things in common: they don’t promote strict religion and they employ various tactics (one used by psychologists) to attract and keep a “broad range” of contemporary people.

One has to wonder… what are these money mavericks selling and to whom?

Read the full article here…

John 15: 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

2 Peter 2: 1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

12 But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, 13 and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, 14 having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. 15 They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16 but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet.

17 These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

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