Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel

The most lasting influence of the Promise Keepers movement may well have been the market it spawned.

A careful look at Jesus Christ will reveal an extremely self-actualized person, an individual who preached self-reliance, and was not afraid to incur disapproval. Yet many of his followers have twisted his teachings into a catechism of fear and self-hate.

Think of it as a massive experiment in mind control.

In the twenty-first century, a very different and more numerous breed of ideologues promulgated the opposite message—that all was well with our deeply unequal society and, for those willing to make the effort, about to get much, much better. The motivators and other purveyors of positive thinking had good news for people facing economic ruin from t