If you don’t know who Kenneth Copeland is, you should. Kenneth Copeland is the poster boy for why monotheism is dangerous.
Ken’s a televangelist and a big fan of the “prosperity gospel”. He preaches that contrary to what Jesus actually said about money and how corrupting it is, “true believers” like Ken owe it to themselves to get filthy, stinking rich. Still, ya gotta give guys like Ken their due. That’s quite an imaginative leap to get from “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” to a an actual rich man like Ken buying the kingdom of God out from under God because Ken is richer than God. That’s just one measly example of how easy it is in the religion biz to take something that clearly means one thing and make it mean its diametric opposite. As moored as monotheism seems to a concrete “God”, its god is never in fact made of concrete.
What a luxury it is to have such a fluid, malleable deity that each human can make God in their very own image – which is exactly what every theist does (by design). What’s the alternative? Imagine God in someone else’s image – like the guy praying across from you? Look, I honestly don’t care what anyone else believes so long as it doesn’t “get on me”. But, make your crazy belief system my problem (by, say, legislating it) and then, yeah – I’m going to take issue with you AND your deity. Especially when you think you ARE the deity.
Whose voice is it really that fills a believer’s head when a believer surrenders themselves to God? Does God (or Jesus) really “want” Ken Copeland to fly private rather than commercial? I doubt God or Jesus actually give a flying eff. But, Kenny C sure does – and he believes down to his mitochondria that it’s not him insisting that he treat himself like God, it’s God!
Except it ain’t.
Ask ten people who believe in God what God is and you’ll get ten different answers especially if those ten people run the gamut from Reform Jews to lapsed Catholics to FLDS Mormons to Wahabist Muslims. “God” can cover a lot of territory, plenty of it outright contradictory. Theists point to this fluidity as evidence of God’s transcendence. He can be all things to all people. So can a finger painting. The Lord may work in mysterious ways but if he’d just stay on his meds maybe he’d get a handle on that.
Guys like Kenny Copeland and Benny Hinn and Joel O’Steen and TD Jakes and David Oyedepo and Pat Roberson and Jesse Duplantis and Creflo Dollar do not for two seconds believe IN God. But they all – every one of them – believe they ARE God. Take that to the bank and prepare to get richer than a televangelist.