Hawking Jesus

I’m sure he’s a perfectly decent fellow. He’s certainly been able to build a sizable following. I’ve never read his books, never met the man, and up until yesterday I’ve never heard anything more than a soundbite from him on national television.

But then yesterday, I was stuck in the car in traffic and had been listening to the Christian radio station when his syndicated show came on. And since I’m here in Tennessee where this man lives & works, I figured, okay, let’s see what all the fuss is about.

It took me 20 minutes to get from Starbucks on the Old Trail highway to the bank over on Mercury Drive. During that brief amount of time I heard no less than 666 commercials and every single one of them by this man who has made his fortunes by instructing others on how to get out of debt.

He’s got a new book out and he was holding some event. In the first two minutes of his show I heard how the chicken folks were providing chicken and the pork folks were providing barbecue and the desert folks had cakes out and donuts folks had their donuts there and, and, and… well I’m sure there was enough food to feed all of Lower Alabama. The food was free, donated, of course, by this man’s good friends.

He’s got a lot of good friends, to hear him tell it.

There’s the good friend who handles his insurance needs.

There’s the good friend who made the blinds for his home.

There’s the good friend who handles his mutual funds.

And the good friend who buys up all the gold.

And the good friend who will handle your money, once you get you some.

And the good friends who made that new movie you should go see.

And, of course, his best friend everah… JESUS.

By the time I got to Mercury road, I realized this man was a motor-mouth for Capitalism who has created an empire by branding the name of Jesus.

He’ll be in Texas come this weekend for another big to-do. Get to the church early, if you want some of that chicken and a copy of his latest book. He’s expecting 8,000 people to show up.

I imagine they will, too.

Seems we haven’t changed much since the old days of the Isarelites. We make our craven images & worship them because well, we need a flesh & blood Kingboss to tell us how to live our lives.

Our only requirement is that they tell us the secret formula for getting rich.

There’s nothing Christians love better than some clean-cut fellow hawking Jesus.