walked around the room and made his way down the hall to the bedroom. There was a single bed with a folded-over sheet and a thin blanket. He would have loved a drink, but he knew without asking that there probably wasnât a beer to be had in the whole complex. He arranged himself on the bed, pulling the thin blanket over him.
Arthur Mack was cold, and uncomfortable, and unsure of why exactly he was here, but he recognized opportunity, just as he had those years ago when he started his hedge fund. But what he felt, more powerfully than he had ever felt before, was a strange sense that he had at last found his flock, that these were folks who understood him, who really appreciated him. They get me, he thought, they really, really get me.
PASTOR ROGER WAS SPEAKING INTO a microphone and facing a camera in a darkened TV studio, one of a half-dozen in the bowels of the stadium where he did postproduction on his own sermons, or could appear as a guest on any of a series of KIK-TV or Fox News shows. He had grown up in television. His grandfather was a televangelist preaching mainstream Southern Baptist Conference liturgy whoâd had the brainstorm of buying his own television stations in several Texas markets, the better to spread his own Sunday message. As a child, Pastor Roger picked up the technical aspects of putting on a Sunday devotional service, learning how to adjust the lighting around the platform, as his grandfather called the area around the pulpit. Working behind the scenes suited the shy, soft-spoken boy. By the time he was seventeen, he was producing his grandfatherâs show and had a network executiveâs understanding of television marketsâtime slots, lead-ins, and cost-per-ratings points. Pastor Billy vigorously preached the message every Sunday until he was eighty-six, when he wound up in a Dallas hospital and turned to young Roger and urged him to take the platform.
Pastor Roger, already in his late twenties, a dropout who had completed a year and a half at Oral Roberts, had never spoken in public, yet that first Sunday as he did the noon service he felt the power of God speaking through him. He carried on his grandfatherâs message of stern self-reliance but found himself adding to it huge dollops of American exceptionalism, free-market glorification, and Ayn Rand objectivism. He had always loved America, of course, but he was surprised by the virulence of his words, his assertion of the market as the hand of God, and of government regulation as the devilâs claw. He combined this with a promise to his congregants that if they believed in God, and if they continued to congregate in the Church of Texas, as it was then called, that they too would be made wealthy by the freemarket. God wants us all to be rich, he assured his flock every Sunday. God wants us to have a big life, a gigantic life, a ten-thousand-square-foot-mansion-and-a-rib-eye-every-night kind of life. Do you know who is blocking that connection to God?
And the congregants would cry out: Big Government. The Regulators. The Environmentalists. The Progressives. The Takers.
He had surprised himself by his hatred of all those who stood in the way of progress, who disputed that God had given man dominion over all the fish of the sea and birds of the air, over all the livestock, over all the Earth. All of it, Pastor Roger would pound the pulpit, all of it. Every rock. Every tree. Every drop. It is ours to use! Those who would deny us that dominion? They are the enemies of God.
It was a powerful message. His grandfather never took the platform again.
HE HIMSELF WAS NOT WEALTHY. But his Church had prospered. There were the television stations, the books, the stadium-cum-church, purchased from the city of Irvine for $180 million and refurbished for another $150 million. There were the action figures and religious trinkets and devotional bathmats and bracelets and hoodies and even panties. He was the CEO of a multibillion-dollar
Arthur Mack was cold, and uncomfortable, and unsure of why exactly he was here, but he recognized opportunity, just as he had those years ago when he started his hedge fund. But what he felt, more powerfully than he had ever felt before, was a strange sense that he had at last found his flock, that these were folks who understood him, who really appreciated him. They get me, he thought, they really, really get me.
PASTOR ROGER WAS SPEAKING INTO a microphone and facing a camera in a darkened TV studio, one of a half-dozen in the bowels of the stadium where he did postproduction on his own sermons, or could appear as a guest on any of a series of KIK-TV or Fox News shows. He had grown up in television. His grandfather was a televangelist preaching mainstream Southern Baptist Conference liturgy whoâd had the brainstorm of buying his own television stations in several Texas markets, the better to spread his own Sunday message. As a child, Pastor Roger picked up the technical aspects of putting on a Sunday devotional service, learning how to adjust the lighting around the platform, as his grandfather called the area around the pulpit. Working behind the scenes suited the shy, soft-spoken boy. By the time he was seventeen, he was producing his grandfatherâs show and had a network executiveâs understanding of television marketsâtime slots, lead-ins, and cost-per-ratings points. Pastor Billy vigorously preached the message every Sunday until he was eighty-six, when he wound up in a Dallas hospital and turned to young Roger and urged him to take the platform.
Pastor Roger, already in his late twenties, a dropout who had completed a year and a half at Oral Roberts, had never spoken in public, yet that first Sunday as he did the noon service he felt the power of God speaking through him. He carried on his grandfatherâs message of stern self-reliance but found himself adding to it huge dollops of American exceptionalism, free-market glorification, and Ayn Rand objectivism. He had always loved America, of course, but he was surprised by the virulence of his words, his assertion of the market as the hand of God, and of government regulation as the devilâs claw. He combined this with a promise to his congregants that if they believed in God, and if they continued to congregate in the Church of Texas, as it was then called, that they too would be made wealthy by the freemarket. God wants us all to be rich, he assured his flock every Sunday. God wants us to have a big life, a gigantic life, a ten-thousand-square-foot-mansion-and-a-rib-eye-every-night kind of life. Do you know who is blocking that connection to God?
And the congregants would cry out: Big Government. The Regulators. The Environmentalists. The Progressives. The Takers.
He had surprised himself by his hatred of all those who stood in the way of progress, who disputed that God had given man dominion over all the fish of the sea and birds of the air, over all the livestock, over all the Earth. All of it, Pastor Roger would pound the pulpit, all of it. Every rock. Every tree. Every drop. It is ours to use! Those who would deny us that dominion? They are the enemies of God.
It was a powerful message. His grandfather never took the platform again.
HE HIMSELF WAS NOT WEALTHY. But his Church had prospered. There were the television stations, the books, the stadium-cum-church, purchased from the city of Irvine for $180 million and refurbished for another $150 million. There were the action figures and religious trinkets and devotional bathmats and bracelets and hoodies and even panties. He was the CEO of a multibillion-dollar
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