Like most people, I watched John Oliver’s segment on “Prosperity Gospel” televangelists and marveled at how easy it was for him to legally incorporate as a tax-free church raking in tax-free donations even while transparently admitting that the whole thing was a disingenuous, exploitative joke:
And, like many people — particularly those of us who are among the long-term un- and under-employed — I couldn’t help but also think of this as a kind of job opening.
That’s how you learn to view the world after several hours (or months, or years) scrolling through the job listings on Monster or Craigslist. You begin to despair of ever finding some job that would make the best use of your particular gifts, skills, expertise, and experience, and you just start looking longingly at every job listed, imagining whether or not you might maybe be able to somehow pull that off.
Granted, becoming a Prosperity-Gospel peddling televangelist would be a significant career shift for me at this point, but it seems I’m going to need a pretty drastic shift into some new field, so why not consider this one as a possibility?
So I’ve done what it’s often helpful to do when contemplating this sort of major life decision: I’ve begun putting together a pro and con list of the potential advantages and disadvantages it would entail.
Should I become a Prosperity Gospel televangelist?
Pros:
• Work is relatively easy and initial start-up costs seem manageable.
• Own private jet, mansion(s), bling, financial security, escape from the paycheck-to-paycheck rut.
• Popular message with a built-in audience.
• More diverse and inclusive audience than almost any other religious arena.
• Could offer tax-deductions for my donors — which is kind of like helping other people, in a way.
• Path to respectability.
• No more Big Box.
Cons:
• Not good match for my temperament. Yes, I’d like to keep the Yaris running without stressing out over cost of repairs, but replacing it with a fleet of Bentleys and a private jet really isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
• Loss of eternal soul.
• Slacktivixen wouldn’t appreciate being asked to dress like a Prosperity Gospel-televangelist’s wife.
• Peer group would be other Prosperity Gospel preachers, so colleagues and closest associates would be a bunch of massive a-holes.
• Preying on the poor by exploiting vulnerable people’s financial fears and desperation would make me a massive a-hole.
• Prosperity Gospel is a blasphemous lie from the pit of Hell.
On balance, then, I suppose the “Con” side makes a somewhat stronger case.
Oh well. I guess I’ll head back over to Craigslist and Monster.com, confirm that there’s still nothing there for writers or editors, and go back to wondering how hard it might be to get a commercial driver’s license.
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