Get-rich-quick schemes drained my town’s wealth. At a Christian conference, their legacy lives on

“As believers, we train ourselves to be valuable to the marketplace,” said the minor-league baseball player-turnedreal-estate investor Jason Benham. “How do we use the talents, opportunities, abilities and resources that God has given us so that the Kingdom of Heaven may come to Earth through us?”

Jason and his twin brother, David, were our emcees for the day at Life

Surge, a Christian finance conference in Denver. A blending of faith and finance, Life Surge tours the nation offering both motivational and practical lectures on building wealth the Christian way, with emotionally charged, musical worship services peppered throughout the day. The former NFL superstar and evangelical hero Tim Tebow and Willie Robertson of the hit reality show Duck Dynasty were among a host of conservative celebrities speaking at the event, catered by the fast-food restaurant Chick-Fil-A – a pariah among liberals and martyr to the religious right for executives’ public opposition to gay marriage.

Life Surge follows a long tradition of evangelists offering financial advice through the lens of morality and the supernatural. The Iowa farming community I grew up in during the 80s and 90s was steeped in these institutions, which vampirically drained my family and community’s economic momentum. Many of our church’s leaders attended Oral Roberts University, named for the televangelist most associated with the “prosperity gospel”, which explained that your financial success or failure was directly tied to your Christian morality.

These teachings often find the most success in economically impoverished communities and developing countries. During the farm crisis of the 1980s – which radiated out into all avenues of the Iowa economy – many desperate families in my home town were susceptible to the get-rich-quick opportunities offered by proponents of the prosperity gospel. But they were often left with little but shame and debt.

When my dad filed his first of multiple bankruptcies after our retail waterbed store went out of business, people from our church explained that it was his affair that had caused this. While we remained poor, my parents gave an estimated $100,000 to our church over many years, partly in tithing 10% of our business income but also in extra “seed faith” donations, a practice that the prosperity gospel teaches