The Ash Twins Blog

From a 2004 article in Slate:

Last month, In Defense of Animals, a California-based animal rights organization, sent me some materials about its “Guardian Campaign.” A polite letter complimented me on my most recent book, then requested that I use the term “guardian” rather than “owner” in future writings about dogs. . .

The benefits of relating to animals as guardians rather than as owners would be “far reaching,” wrote IDA president Dr. Elliot Katz (who’s no relation). Changing how we speak would help change how we act. In a world where dogs are protected rather than owned, Katz argued, it would be easier to crack down on animal abuse, end the puppy-mill trade, and stop the killing of animals at shelters. . .

IDA’s letter proudly pointed out that San Francisco; West Hollywood; Berkeley, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Amherst, Mass., and the state of Rhode Island have already enacted ordinances changing owners into guardians. (Some of those jurisdictions have also embraced the animal-rights movement’s other language crusade, changing “pets” into “companion animals.”) . . .

Social movements are only as effective as their ability to win popular support. I’m currently living in rural upstate New York, and I showed the IDA packet to Sandra, a sheep farmer who lives down the road with her female partner. She was shocked. “I love my Rottweiler,” Sandra told me. “But I’d love to marry my partner and I can’t. I have to say I’m a bit uncomfortable with dogs having more rights than I do. Me first.” Sandra had just filed legal papers to have her partner declared her legal guardian in the event of serious illness. She said she was not about to do the same for her dog. . .

My IDA packet contained a testimonial from a Michael Mountain of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. “People of other genders, races and even age groups were once treated as property in this country,” Mountain wrote. “Now, it is time for ‘people’ of other species to be accorded the same simple dignity of being recognized, not as someone else’s property but as beings in their own right.”Mountain couldn’t have made the point more dramatically—or offensively. I don’t care to jump in with a moral value system that equates my beloved border collies with human slaves. Nothing about this comparison helps animals. It distorts their true natures and diminishes ours.

The guardian campaign is a vivid example of the growing tendency to blur the boundaries between us and our pets. Many Americans have already stopped seeing their dogs and cats as animals. They’re family members, emotional support systems, metaphors for issues from our own pasts, aids for healing and growth, children with fur.

Seeing them the way we see ourselves—as having human thoughts and needs, human rights—is another kind of abuse and exploitation. It is cruel to crate a child, but it’s often helpful and soothing to crate a dog. No human would want to spend five minutes in a kennel, yet good kennels, much maligned by deeply attached pet owners, are often the safest and best places to leave dogs when we leave home.

Seeing dogs as piteous, deprived, abused, and needy can lead us to treat them unwisely. Vets cite overfeeding and the resultant epidemic obesity as a major killer of dogs and cats in America. Yet I can’t count how many times I’ve heard somebody say, “I feed him because I just can’t bear to starve him.” Or “I just can’t resist when he begs for food. He’s so cute.” Any vet or animal nutritionist would tell these people that they’re doing as much harm to their cute little beggars by overfeeding them as they would by kicking them.

People who see their dogs as humanlike often struggle to train them properly, especially if they believe they were abused or mistreated. Owners sometimes think their dogs have already suffered so much that they couldn’t possibly inflict any more criticism. Yet it’s that very firm, effective training that would make those dogs happier and more secure. And what about the growing number of owners who find neutering cruel or unbearable, because they would find it so? Refusing to neuter may put their own pet or someone else’s in danger—causing aggression, running away, and unwanted litters. Or the pet owners who make their dogs hyper by believing they need to “play” continuously, like overprogrammed boomer children? They drag them to unruly play groups, toss Frisbees and balls night and day, haul them to an endless round of organized activities—but fail to teach them how to be calm.

The humanlike view of dogs affects the decision about when to euthanize a sick or elderly pet. I recently attended two veterinary conventions where scores of vets told me their biggest recent problem is people who see their pets as so human that they simply cannot end their lives or suffering, no matter the cost or the pain.

There is no evidence that dogs have the kind of complex emotional lives and value systems that we do. It’s one reason why we love them so much, in fact. They are neither “good” nor “bad.” They don’t hold grudges, act in petty ways, or seek revenge. They read our moods, but not our minds. If they did, we’d start loving them as we love other humans—which could mean a lot less than we love them now.

Dogs are not “people” of another species. They are another species. To train and care for them properly, to show them how to live in our complex world, requires first and foremost that we understand that. I owe my dogs much—more than I can say—but they are not my “companions”—as if we voluntarily chose to hang out together but none of us has authority over the others. I bought and/or acquired them. I own them. I am profoundly responsible for their care and well being.

Guardianship, a word always applied to human beings, implies equality—the highest and perhaps most noble of all goals in this democratic nation. Ownership implies responsibility. Americans who own dogs need to be more responsible for them, literally and emotionally—not more equal to them.

The drama of the modern dog is that he is segregated from society—from work, children, public places—and then blamed for not knowing how to live in our world. The things he wants to do—have sex, roll in gross stuff, roam freely, squabble with other dogs, chew shoes, pee on every other tree—are either illegal or frowned upon. His challenge isn’t to become a free and equal person in the best traditions of our society but to learn how to live in the alien world of people.

Guardianship suggests dogs have a right to live their own lives as they wish. This is impossible in our dog-unfriendly world. Ownership implies a human duty to help the dog adjust to this difficult, inhospitable place.

The following WebMD article gives an interesting discussion of the phenomenon of Santa Claus mythology. It serves to begin with parental platitudes. Those in favor:

Any thought of hooking Santa Claus away from the holiday stage is enough to make some parents roll their eyes or throw up their hands in outrage.

“Why on earth are we in such a hurry to take away the innocence and magic that exists in childhood?” says one parent in an online message board.

“Let children be children for as long as possible!” says another parent.

And against:

A brief review of comments from some online message boards, however, reveals that the Santa notion also elicits its share of cringes:

“I will never teach my children about the myth of Santa, because he is not the reason we celebrate Christmas.”

“You teach your kids not to lie and yet we lie to them right away about Santa and the Easter Bunny.”

“The truth is some kids get nothing for Christmas, because there really is no Santa and some parents cannot scrape up the extra dough. The child that gets told Santa loves and gives to everybody will wonder what is wrong with them.”

“Why would anyone want to make the nice gesture of buying and wrapping the perfect gift, only to give the credit to a fictional character?”

The article then offers some relevant facts:

Small studies from the United States and Canada suggest that virtually all children know about Santa Claus, even if they do not view him as a real person. A significant percentage of believers discovered the truth behind the tale around age 7. Only half of kids aged 8 to 11 reported believing in Santa.

When they did find out the truth, most of them reacted in a positive manner. Two out of three kids said they felt a sense of pride in figuring out the truth about Santa Claus. Half of them said that although the jolly guy was not real, they liked the idea of him.

And some relevant knowledge from child psychologists:

Very young children live in an imaginary world, and that world is reality for them. “Little kids think there actually might be a monster in their closet or a dragon under their bed,” says Douglas Kramer, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. “It seems real to them, so it’s got to be real.”

At ages 1 through 4, children can comprehend tangible things such as sleigh, reindeer, and Santa Claus as a real person, Kramer explains. These kids cannot yet grasp abstract concepts.

At 4 to 6 years old, Kramer says children may begin questioning whether Santa Claus is a real person. It is not until kids are about 6 to 8 that they may be ready to understand that Santa Claus is real, but not in a concrete sense. Their ability to think abstractly begins developing at this time and continues on until they are about 14 years old.

And some professional advice:

Parents who strongly believe that they are betraying their children’s trust by sharing the Santa Claus tale probably do not need to tell them the story, says Robert Feldman, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who has conducted extensive research on lying and deception.

Keep in mind, though, that in the overall scale of deception, propagating the Santa myth is no worse than saying things like “You look terrific,” or “You haven’t gained weight,” or “What a great dress,” says Feldman, noting that people generally use lies as a social crutch.

“We actually teach our kids that deception is acceptable,” says Feldman. For example, he says parents often ask their children to pretend they like gifts from relatives to spare the feelings of family members. . .

Tasha Howe, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., says parents can use fantasy to encourage children’s critical and independent thinking. When children ask questions related to Santa Claus, such as “Is there really a Santa Claus?” or “How do reindeer fly?” she suggests encouraging little ones to come up with their own explanations.

The article ends by deflating the intense disagreements among parental philosophers:

There is no scientific research indicating the Santa tale can be helpful or harmful to kids, says Howe. So when her students who are parents ask her whether or not they should promote the Santa tale, she simply responds, “It’s a personal choice. Whatever choice you make, I don’t think it’s going to harm your child.”

Another article, published in Yahoo News, discusses the phenomenon of letters written to Santa. According to a spokeswoman, the U.S. postal services receives hundreds of thousands of letters a year. Scranton psychology professor Carole Slotterback wrote a book after reading hundreds of these letters:

One kid asked to be an elf. Another made a list that included Pokemon cards, a camera and a microscope. But about every third item, the child wrote: “NO clothes.”

And then there was the one written in careful cursive on bright pink paper, in which Santa was asked for perhaps the greatest gift of all: a mom.

“Not just for me but my daddy, brother and granny … my daddy works so hard and then he comes home to cook and clean and it should be easier,” the letter read. . .

Some are funny — one asked Santa to check the appropriate box: Real or not real? — but many more are not, she said.

“I’ve never gone 5 or 10 minutes without getting teary,” said Brennan. “It’s very emotional.”

Children who sent letters instead of lists were generally more polite and chatty, for instance asking about Mrs. Claus, Slotterback said.

Except for the death threat. One child wrote: “Dear Santa, I am going to kill you and steal the toys from your workshop.”

One odd comment made by Slotterback is about the psychological reaction of children to growing up in a society saturated by fearmongering about terrorists:

And there was no indication that children feared the terrorists would get Santa, she said.

“Terrorists can do all kinds of things to our world, and they can hurt us in many ways, but one thing they can’t do is touch Santa,” said Slotterback. “And that was nice to see.”

That comment suggests, perhaps thankfully, that it is only the old woman Slotterback, rather than the actual children, that is fooled by societal fearmongering.

One more excerpt about children’s use of politeness:

But she noted a surprising lack of social niceties in the correspondence, unless the child was asking for a pet. A boy who asked for a golden retriever used “please” 16 times, she said. The next-highest use came from a girl who wanted a horse.

Slotterback cited other research that found people who expect their requests to be fulfilled — like a boss asking an employee to do something — are less likely to say please. Perhaps likewise, she said, kids expect Santa to come through.

From an article in the Economist about the history of cleanliness:

There seemed to be no end… to the inventiveness of American firms when it came to setting new hygienic standards. All-over washing, the application of deodorant, the shaving of armpits, dental mouthwash: each was transformed into essential rituals for the self-respecting modern American woman.“But I’m 31…I’ll never get married now!” wails Frances, a glossy-haired young woman leaning forlornly against a tree, in a 1936 advert for Lux soap in the Woman’s Home Companion. Fortunately, her girlfriend has a tip to help her win back her beau: washing her underwear in Lux. “Avoid Offending!” instructs the ad. “Many girls lose out on friendship, romance, happiness—because of one shocking, unforgivable fault…perspiration odour in underthings.” Thanks to Lux, Fran learned to wash her underwear in fragrant suds, and thus to hold on to the man of her dreams.

American soapmakers devised an ingenious way to market their product. They sponsored drama series on radio, and later television, designed for the suburban housewife, known as soap operas. Procter & Gamble was behind “The Guiding Light”, first broadcast on radio in 1937, and which became the world’s longest-running soap opera. Lever Brothers and Colgate-Palmolive were also enthusiastic sponsors.

From an article in Miller-McCune:

In a paper posted recently on the online journal Evolutionary Psychology, independent researcher Gregory S. Paul reports a strong correlation within First World democracies between socioeconomic well-being and secularity. In short, prosperity is highest in societies where religion is practiced least.

Using existing data, Paul combined 25 indicators of societal and economic stability — things like crime, suicide, drug use, incarceration, unemployment, income, abortion and public corruption — to score each country using what he calls the “successful societies scale.” He also scored countries on their degree of religiosity, as determined by such measures as church attendance, belief in a creator deity and acceptance of Bible literalism.

Comparing the two scores, he found, with little exception, that the least religious countries enjoyed the most prosperity. Of particular note, the U.S. holds the distinction of most religious and least prosperous among the 17 countries included in the study, ranking last in 14 of the 25 socioeconomic measures.

Paul is quick to point out that his study reveals correlation, not causation. Which came first — prosperity or secularity — is unclear, but Paul ventures a guess. While it’s possible that good governance and socioeconomic health are byproducts of a secular society, more likely, he speculates, people are inclined to drop their attachment to religion once they feel distanced from the insecurities and burdens of life.

“Popular religion,” Paul proposes, “is a coping mechanism for the anxieties of a dysfunctional social and economic environment.” Paul, who was criticized, mostly on statistical grounds, for a similar study published in 2005, says his new findings lend support to the belief that mass acceptance of popular religion is determined more by environmental influences and less by selective, evolutionary forces, as scholars and philosophers have long debated.

In other words, we’re not hardwired for religion. . .

Indeed, researchers in a variety of other studies are targeting the positive effects of church-based social interaction. One study published earlier this year in the Journal of Happiness Studies concluded that the quality and depth of personal relationships has a far greater effect on children’s happiness than does religious practice itself — church attendance, prayer, meditation. In many American communities, organized religion is the principal conduit to those kinds of close relationships, as well as to civic action and problem-solving. . .

This piece by Emmanual Saez describes the striking income inequality in the United States:

[E]stimates based purely on wages and salaries show that the share of total wages and salaries earned by the top 1 percent wage income earners has jumped from 5.1 percent in 1970 to 12.4 percent in 2007. . .

Estimates of wealth concentration, measured by the share of total wealth accruing to top 1 percent wealth holders, constructed by Wojciech Kopczuk and myself from estate tax returns for the 1916-2000 period in the United States show a precipitous decline in the first part of the century with only fairly modest increases in recent decades. The evidence suggests that top incomes earners today are not “rentiers” deriving their incomes from past wealth but rather are “working rich,” highly paid employees or new entrepreneurs who have not yet accumulated fortunes comparable to those accumulated during the Gilded Age. Such a pattern might not last for very long. The possible repeal of the federal tax on large estates in coming years would certainly accelerate the path toward the reconstitution of the great wealth concentration that existed in the U.S. economy before the Great Depression.

The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of macroeconomic productivity gains. A number of factors may help explain this increase in inequality, not only underlying technological changes but also the retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II – such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality.

From a piece on neuroscience and philosophy by Patricia Churchland, published in Neuron, November 2008:

[H]uman groups can be large and… kindly behavior may extend beyond the circle of kin and even beyond the community. Traditional moral philosophers are apt to attribute this phenomenon to a unique relationship with God, to the greater intrinsic goodness of humans, to our greater intelligence, or to some combination of these. Though these may be implicated, it is worth considering that biologically rooted dispositions explain extending social attachment beyond kin and clan.

Bowles (2006) has argued that altruism and lethal competition between human groups coevolved. Just as a chimp troop is apt to expand its territory and resources by killing off members of a neighboring troop, early hominins probably found it paid to raid weaker hominin clans and divide the spoils in a sufficiently fair-ish way to ensure loyalty. Able manpower to defend and attack would be an important consideration in enlarging the group and extending attachments.

Even so, amalgamation is a risky business, since problematic newcomers could undermine the welfare or stability of the group. Will they be a social boon or burden? Before accepting a newcomer, the group needs assurance that he can bond normally and is not socially or emotionally handicapped. The hypothesis is that, as a first-pass filter for trustworthiness, unconscious mimicry serves rather well.

Psychological studies on unconscious mimicry in humans show that the posture, mannerisms, prosody,  and words of the experimenter are unknowingly mimicked by the experimental subject as the two engage on a shared task. Additionally, subjects whom the experimenter mimics tend to evaluate the experimenter more favorably than if they were not mimicked (Chartrand and Dalton, 2008). Subjects who experience social stress before beginning the task display a higher level of unconscious mimicry than otherwise. Casual observation of humans getting to know each other supports the science, indicating that unconscious mimicry functions as ‘‘social glue.’’ The production and detection of mimicry requires energy, implying that the brain cares enough to spend the resources on a regular basis. Why? Is it possible that humans use imitative behavior as evidence of normal social capacities?

Humans appear to be vastly more imitative than other primates (Tomasello et al., 2005). When infants begin to imitate, a deeper level of bonding seems to emerge. Why does infant imitation bring such joy to parents? One factor among others is that imitative performance predicts that the child has the neural wherewithal to learn what he needs to learn to survive, both socially and in the wider world. Negatively put, if the infant fails to imitate, the failure is a worrisome predictor that the brain lacks what the infant needs to get on in the social world. In the ancestral condition, parental investment may be reduced accordingly. Mimicry, I suggest, serves as a social signal because it indicates the presence of a crucial social capacity, namely the capacity to ‘‘read minds’’—know what others intend, believe, expect, and feel. If mimicry can be used to evaluate infants, so also strangers.

The idea is that adults respond positively to mimicry in social situations because imitative behavior is a powerful signal of social competence that inaugurates trust or assures the continuation of trust. If the newcomer is trustworthy, in this sense, he will probably behave in a way that is consistent with good citizenry. This means that mimicry, even if unconsciously produced and unconsciously detected, is a safety signal. The level of [oxytocin], and hence the level of trust, probably increase; defensive behavior and autonomic arousal decrease. Mimicry is not a fail-safe predictor of social competence, and full acceptance will be gradual. As a first-pass filter, however, it may weed out the worst. As a first-pass filter, it may also set the stage for trade and cooperation with other clans. Some strangers with evil intent may pretend so thoroughly that they do unconsciously mimic. Others may not, thus tipping off the insiders that something is amiss. The occasional sociopaths may easily gain entry, though the old hands may read groveling behavior as too good to be true.

In a penetrating essay on Obama’s Afghanistan escalation speech to West Point undergrads, Frank Rich offers the following insight:

But the president’s own method for rallying public support — a plea to “summon that unity” of 9/11 again — fell flat. There are several reasons why. First, 9/11 has been cheapened by the countless politicians who have exploited it, culminating with Rudy Giuliani. The sole achievement of America’s Former Mayor’s farcical presidential campaign was to render the evil of 9/11 banal. Second, 9/11 is eight years in the past. Looking at the youthful faces of the cadets in Obama’s audience on Tuesday, you realized that they were literally children on that horrific day, and that the connection between 9/11/01 and the newest iteration of the war they must fight in a new decade is something of an abstraction.

Here’s another highlight:

As L.B.J. learned the hard way, we can’t have both guns and the butter of big domestic projects, from health care to desperately needed jobs programs. We have to make choices. Obama paid lip service to that point, but the only sacrifice he cited in the entire speech was addressed to his audience at West Point, not the general public — the burden borne by the military and military families. While the president didn’t tell American civilians to revel in tax cuts and go shopping, as his predecessor did after 9/11, that may be a distinction without a difference. Obama’s promises to accomplish his ambitious plans for nation building at home while pursuing an expanded war sounded just as empty.

In this, he’s like most of the war’s supporters, regardless of party. On Fox News last Sunday, two senators, the Republican Jon Kyl and the Democrat Evan Bayh, found rare common ground in agreeing that an expanded Afghanistan effort should never require new taxes. It’s this bipartisan mantra that more war must be fought without more sacrifice — rather than Obama’s tentative withdrawal timeline — that most loudly signals to the world the shallowness of the American public’s support for any Afghanistan escalation.

In today’s New York Times, Jared Diamond gives a thoughtful discussion about the role of corporations in cleaning up the environment. Here’s an excerpt about Wal-mart’s environmentalist reforms:

Obviously, a business can save money by finding ways to spend less while maintaining sales. This is what Wal-Mart did with fuel costs, which the company reduced by $26 million per year simply by changing the way it managed its enormous truck fleet. Instead of running a truck’s engine all night to heat or cool the cab during mandatory 10-hour rest stops, the company installed small auxiliary power units to do the job. In addition to lowering fuel costs, the move eliminated the carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to taking 18,300 passenger vehicles off the road.Wal-Mart is also working to double the fuel efficiency of its truck fleet by 2015, thereby saving more than $200 million a year at the pump. Among the efficient prototypes now being tested are trucks that burn biofuels generated from waste grease at Wal-Mart’s delis. Similarly, as the country’s biggest private user of electricity, Wal-Mart is saving money by decreasing store energy use.

Another Wal-Mart example involves lowering costs associated with packaging materials. Wal-Mart now sells only concentrated liquid laundry detergents in North America, which has reduced the size of packaging by up to 50 percent. Wal-Mart stores also have machines called bailers that recycle plastics that once would have been discarded. Wal-Mart’s eventual goal is to end up with no packaging waste.

One last Wal-Mart example shows how a company can save money in the long run by buying from sustainably managed sources. Because most wild fisheries are managed unsustainably, prices for Chilean sea bass and Atlantic tuna have been soaring. To my pleasant astonishment, in 2006 Wal-Mart decided to switch, within five years, all its purchases of wild-caught seafood to fisheries certified as sustainable.

http://www.webster.edu/religion-violence/Readings/God%27s_Punishment.pdf

From today’s Atlantic:

Among Latinos the prosperity gospel has been spreading rapidly. In a recent Pew survey, 73 percent of all religious Latinos in the United States agreed with the statement: “God will grant financial success to all believers who have enough faith.” For a generation of poor and striving Latino immigrants, the gospel seems to offer a road map to affluence and modern living. Garay’s church is comprised mostly of first-generation immigrants. More than others I’ve visited, it echoes back a highly distilled, unself-conscious version of the current thinking on what it means to live the American dream.

One other thing makes Garay’s church a compelling case study. From 2001 to 2007, while he was building his church, Garay was also a loan officer at two different mortgage companies. He was hired explicitly to reach out to the city’s growing Latino community, and Latinos, as it happened, were disproportionately likely to take out the sort of risky loans that later led to so many foreclosures. To many of his parishioners, Garay was not just a spiritual adviser, but a financial one as well. . .

In the past decade, [the "prosperity gospel" movement] has produced about a dozen celebrity pastors, who show up at White House events, on secular radio, and as guests on major TV talk shows. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a Methodist megapastor in Houston and a purveyor of the prosperity gospel, gave the benediction at both of George W. Bush’s inaugurals. Instead of shiny robes or gaudy jewelry, these preachers wear Italian suits and modest wedding bands. Instead of screaming and sweating, they smile broadly and speak in soothing, therapeutic terms. But their message is essentially the same. “Every day, you’re going to live that abundant life!” preaches Joel Osteen, a best-selling author, the nation’s most popular TV preacher, and the pastor of Lakewood Church, in Houston, the country’s largest church by far.Among mainstream, nondenominational megachurches, where much of American religious life takes place, “prosperity is proliferating” rapidly, says Kate Bowler, a doctoral candidate at Duke University and an expert in the gospel. Few, if any, of these churches have prosperity in their title or mission statement, but Bowler has analyzed their sermons and teachings. Of the nation’s 12 largest churches, she says, three are prosperity—Osteen’s, which dwarfs all the other megachurches; Tommy Barnett’s, in Phoenix; and T. D. Jakes’s, in Dallas. In second-tier churches—those with about 5,000 members—the prosperity gospel dominates. Overall, Bowler classifies 50 of the largest 260 churches in the U.S. as prosperity. The doctrine has become popular with Americans of every background and ethnicity; overall, Pew found that 66 percent of all Pentecostals and 43 percent of “other Christians”—a category comprising roughly half of all respondents—believe that wealth will be granted to the faithful. It’s an upbeat theology, argues Barbara Ehrenreich in her new book, Bright-Sided, that has much in common with the kind of “positive thinking” that has come to dominate America’s boardrooms and, indeed, its entire culture. . .

More recently, critics have begun to argue that the prosperity gospel, echoed in churches across the country, might have played a part in the economic collapse. In 2008, in the online magazine Religion Dispatches, Jonathan Walton, a professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside, warned:

Narratives of how “God blessed me with my first house despite my credit” were common … Sermons declaring “It’s your season of overflow” supplanted messages of economic sobriety and disinterested sacrifice. Yet as folks were testifying about “what God can do,” little attention was paid to a predatory subprime-mortgage industry, relaxed credit standards, or the dangers of using one’s home equity as an ATM.

In 2004, Walton was researching a book about black televangelists. “I would hear consistent testimonies about how ‘once I was renting and now God let me own my own home,’ or ‘I was afraid of the loan officer, but God directed him to ignore my bad credit and blessed me with my first home,’” he says. “This trope was so common in these churches that I just became immune to it. Only later did I connect it to this disaster.”

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. Both spread in two particular kinds of communities—the exurban middle class and the urban poor. Many newer prosperity churches popped up around fringe suburban developments built in the 1990s and 2000s, says Walton. These are precisely the kinds of neighborhoods that have been decimated by foreclosures, according to Eric Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending.

Zooming out a bit, Kate Bowler found that most new prosperity-gospel churches were built along the Sun Belt, particularly in California, Florida, and Arizona—all areas that were hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Bowler, who, like Walton, was researching a book, spent a lot of time attending the “financial empowerment” seminars that are common at prosperity churches. Advisers would pay lip service to “sound financial practices,” she recalls, but overall they would send the opposite message: posters advertising the seminars featured big houses in the background, and the parking spots closest to the church were reserved for luxury cars.

Nationally, the prosperity gospel has spread exponentially among African American and Latino congregations. This is also the other distinct pattern of foreclosures. “Hyper-segregated” urban communities were the worst off, says Halperin. Reliable data on foreclosures by race are not publicly available, but mortgages are tracked by both race and loan type, and subprime loans have tended to correspond to foreclosures. During the boom, roughly 40 percent of all loans going to Latinos nationwide were subprime loans; Latinos and African Americans were 28 percent and 37 percent more likely, respectively, to receive a higher-rate subprime loan than whites.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that state attorneys general had the authority to sue national banks for predatory lending. Even before that ruling, at least 17 lawsuits accusing various banks of treating racial minorities unfairly were already under way. (Bank of America’s Countrywide division—one of the companies Garay worked for—had earlier agreed to pay $8.4 billion in a multistate settlement.) One theme emerging in these suits is how banks teamed up with pastors to win over new customers for subprime loans.

Beth Jacobson is a star witness for the City of Baltimore’s recent suit against Wells Fargo. Jacobson was a top loan officer in the bank’s subprime division for nine years, closing as much as $55 million worth of loans a year. . .

The idea of reaching out to churches took off quickly, Jacobson recalls. The branch managers figured pastors had a lot of influence with their parishioners and could give the loan officers credibility and new customers. Jacobson remembers a conference call where sales managers discussed the new strategy. The plan was to send officers to guest-speak at church-sponsored “wealth-building seminars” like the ones Bowler attended, and dazzle the participants with the possibility of a new house. They would tell pastors that for every person who took out a mortgage, $350 would be donated to the church, or to a charity of the parishioner’s choice. . .