Rhetoric Race and Religion
The cable network known for such programming fare as Love Games: Bad Girls Need Love Too, My Big Fat Revenge, Girls Behaving Badly and Too Young to Marry? premiered a new “reality” show last Wednesday that has some Christians upset at how it presents their faith.
Okay, so The Oxygen Network, created in 1998 and co-founded by Oprah Winfrey — though now owned by NBCUniversal — isn’t exactly PBS, or even HBO. There is not much on the channel likely to inspire the devoted following and highbrow analysis of, say, The Wire, Breaking Bad or Downton Abbey. But the latest Oxygen series, Preachers of L.A., seems to tell viewers that the real aim of Christianity is to make as much money as possible — and then flaunt it like a hip-hop star.
The series follows the daily antics of six Los Angeles-based Christian ministers who practice the “Prosperity Gospel,” the idea that getting rich is a holy act. The best known current advocate of the Prosperity gospel is televangelist Joel Osteen. But the preachers on the Oxygen show take the doctrine that you can, in fact, serve both God and mammon to a new extreme.
“P. Diddy, Jay Z. They’re not the only ones who should be driving Ferraris and living in nice houses,” said Ron GIbson, one of the preachers featured in the show.
In case the unthinkable happened and you missed the show’s premiere last week, we’ve got you covered. View the episode here.
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