“Victor, not Victim”: Joel Osteen's Rhetoric of Hope

Sødal, Helje Kringlebotn

doi:10.1080/13537900903416804

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…But the restoration of a physically convincing Christian presence is also about the management of emotions and the cultivation of a particular sense of selfhood (Hochschild 2013). We find a commercialised combination of the two patterns in some elements of the Prosperity Gospel movement, such as the thriving ministry and publishing empire of Joel Osteen, which combines an invocation of self-empowerment with the commercial products that promise to enable the desired process (Sødal 2010). Such fusions of evangelical theology, self-help principles and pro-business motivations have now spread across the world, becoming highly popular in parts of Africa.…”

Section: The Turn To the Cosmeticmentioning

confidence: 98%

From Protestant Ethic to Neoliberal Logic: Evangelicals at the Interface of Culture and Politics

Guest¹

2022

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

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This article brings Max Weber's argument about the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism into conversation with contemporary accounts of society framed by neoliberalism and traces some implications in terms of emergent patterns of authority. It asks how an alignment between evangelicalism and capitalism has fostered a distinctive cross-fertilisation in recent years, including a re-negotiation of what counts as normative, credible, and successful. It argues that a moralised sense of vocation has been overtaken in some influential circles by an urge to mirror the embodied and broadcast perfections of the entertainment industry, and by the importation of business strategies that instrumentalise capital, influence and media exposure. Drawing on examples from recent Anglo-American evangelical historyinspired in turns by a desire for evangelistic success and political influence -the article examines how this pattern is both rooted in a long-standing tradition of technological engagement while also moving into a phase that foregrounds utilitarian logic in order to maximise evangelical exposure and credibility.

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Section: The Turn To the Cosmeticmentioning

confidence: 98%

From Protestant Ethic to Neoliberal Logic: Evangelicals at the Interface of Culture and Politics

Guest¹

2022

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

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“…They also present a contradiction: while celebrating the self and the authority of the self, the authors of self-help literature are knowledge gurus in their own right who assume the task of telling the reader what to do and how to think. For example, the signiicance of evangelical Joel Osteen, author of Become a Better You and Your Best Life Now, is not just as a measure of individualization, but as one stream in a market of new perspectives, offering new ways of understanding the world (Sødal 2010). Mistrust of governments also has implications for education, often creating a discomfort with state-sponsored institutions as contexts for secondary socialization, especially sensitive when issues of moral or religious education are concerned and fraught when central government is perceived to support a particular agenda.…”

Section: Religion and Knowledge In The Contemporary Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion and Knowledge: Sociological Perspectives

Boxer

2015

Contemp Sociol

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During the preparation of this book, in December 2011, Christopher Hitchens, the internationally renowned British-American writer, journalist and political agitator, died from esophageal cancer. Hitchens had become famous -and infamous -for a variety of reasons, but in his inal years he had used his public proile most effectively to denounce religion and call for what he called a 'renewed Enlightenment ' (2007: 283). For Hitchens, religion is the 'main source of hatred in the world', 1 the cause of countless wars and inexcusable human suffering; it is also based on ignorance and is an enemy of 'free enquiry', so that tackling the 'problem' of religion, as Hitchens sees it, is about raising awareness and engaging in a free public debate about the 'proper' bases of knowledge. It is quite understandable then that Hitchens should choose to promote his book God is Not Great not by engaging the intellectual classes of the American East Coast, but by holding a series of public debates among religious conservatives across the Deep South. Hitchens's criticism of religion sits to some extent within a long-standing tradition of post-Enlightenment rationalism, championed by igures like Thomas Jefferson, who, like Hitchens, associated the 'new world' with freedom not just from old political ties, but also from the tyranny and ignorance of traditional religion. Indeed, it was Jefferson who rewrote the Christian New Testament as an account of Jesus as an ethical teacher, with all reference to miracles expunged for the more enlightened, modern reader (Jefferson 2006). Despite his indebtedness to well-known proponents of the Enlightenment, Hitchens's perspective is also irmly rooted in the circumstances of the contemporary world. A 'renewed Enlightenment' could be ushered in on the back of a broader democratization of knowledge, which in turn is part of the collapse of old hierarchies and the levelling effects of the World Wide Web. Religion can be challenged anew because the late modern age is one in which knowledge is no longer the preserve of a privileged few, but accessible to the masses via media that empower as well as intellectually enrich.

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“…Many religious texts reference a deity’s benevolent plans for individuals (Surat al-Baqara, 216; Qran; Tehillim, Psalms 139, JPS Tanak), the desire of the divine to see believers prosper and flourish (Jeremiah 29:11, JPS Tanak), and the blessings that believers can expect as reward for their faithfulness (Surah An-Nahl 16:17–19, Quran; Proverbs 13:21, JPS Tanak). Within recent years, particularly within Western society, there have been a number of religiously oriented self-help books (e.g., Osteen, 2015) and devotional guides (Morris, 2006) that emphasize the individual specialness of believers and the desire of deity to bless believers (Sødal, 2010). Not surprisingly then, there is a great deal of emphasis in some American faith communities on the uniqueness, specialness, and worthiness of believers to receive good things from a deity (Bowler, 2013; Schieman & Jung, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

God owes me: The role of divine entitlement in predicting struggles with a deity.

Grubbs¹,

Exline²,

Campbell³

et al. 2018

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

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Psychological entitlement is a stable personality trait known to predict a range of concerning outcomes in people’s lives. Recent research has suggested that entitlement might have domain-specific manifestations such as romantic entitlement, academic entitlement, and sexual entitlement. The present work sought to examine such a domain specific manifestation in the religious and spiritual realm. This new manifestation was called divine entitlement. The present studies sought to validate this construct and demonstrate its associations with concerning, domain-relevant outcomes. In 2 studies using 6 samples (Study 1, total N = 556; Study 2, Total N = 2,113) divine entitlement was validated as a construct and the Divine Entitlement Scale was developed and validated as a brief measure of this construct. Subsequent structural equation models found that divine entitlement also has a positive, predictive relationship with spiritual struggles with the divine. Through this association (divine entitlement with divine struggle), there was also an indirect association of divine entitlement with psychological distress more broadly. Collectively, these findings illustrate that entitlement may also be exhibited in a domain-specific manner in one’s religious and spiritual life and that this domain-specific manifestation may also have concerning outcomes in both religious and spiritual life and mental health more generally.

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“Victor, not Victim”: Joel Osteen's Rhetoric of Hope

Cited by 7 publications

References 4 publications

From Protestant Ethic to Neoliberal Logic: Evangelicals at the Interface of Culture and Politics

From Protestant Ethic to Neoliberal Logic: Evangelicals at the Interface of Culture and Politics

Religion and Knowledge: Sociological Perspectives

God owes me: The role of divine entitlement in predicting struggles with a deity.

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