The ministers argue that within the context of scripture there's a requirement given by God that you've got to give ten percent of your income to the church. And if you give ten percent - here's the hook - God is going to reward your faithfulness by giving you that ten percent back, and a whole lot more.

Poor people want to be poor; if they just worked harder they could have more.

If one has good faith, you can unlock the secrets of scripture, and in unlocking the secrets of scripture, you have access to everything God wants you to have. Ministers of megachurches become examples of the truth of that claim, because they're well paid, living in wonderful homes, driving very nice cars, dressed well. They are doing well, so if you do this, you too can have success.

The American Dream has really good PR. It's kind of difficult to live in the United States and not on some level be pulled into the allure of the American Dream. It's in the DNA of the country. So, for a population coming out of slavery, desperate to become part of the full life of the United States, it only makes sense that they would embrace this route to the American Dream.

So long as there's been black churches in the United States, there's been a relationship between spiritual well-being and material acquisition. This has always been the case.

The key figure in the Christian faith involves a story of suffering so that others do well. You're only going to get so much liberation, you're only going to get so much transformation, from a system that is based on suffering.

You get a sense that it's okay to have good stuff and still claim a relationship with God. So enslaved Africans rethought their predicament in a way that entailed getting good stuff, material stuff, and having a deep relationship with God. There was no contradiction. And the idea just moves forward from there.