Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich Page B
Authors: Barbara Ehrenreich
Tags: Social Science, Psychology, Sociology, Non-Fiction, Anthropology, Cultural, Pop Culture, american culture, Happiness
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the summer of 2008, as sanctified territory—no crosses, no stained glass windows, no images of Jesus. From my hotel room window, just across a six-lane highway from the church, it’s a squat, warehouse like structure completely at home among the high-rise office buildings surrounding it. In fact, it used to be the Compaq Center, home stadium of the Houston Rockets, until Osteen acquired it in 1999 and transformed the interior into a 16,000-seat megachurch. Entering through an underground parking lot, I arrive in a cheery child-care area decorated with cartoon figures and lacking only popcorn to complete the resemblance to a suburban multiplex theater. Even the sanctuary, the former basketball court, carries on in this godless way. Instead of an altar, there is a stage featuring a rotating globe and flanked by artificial rocks enlivened with streams or what appears, at least, to be flowing water. I can find nothing suggestive of Christianity until I ascend to the second-floor bookstore—a sort of denatured and heavily censored version of Barnes and Noble, prominently displaying Joel Osteen’s works, along with scores of products like scented candles and dinnerware embossed with scriptural quotes. Here, at last, are the crosses—large ones for wall hangings and discreet ones on vases, key chains, and mugs or stitched into ties and argyll socks.
The Osteens—Joel and his copastor and wife, Victoria—when they step forth on the stage for Sunday service to a standing ovationare an attractive couple in their forties, but Joel is not quite the “walking advertisement for the success creed” I had read him described as. 11 He is shorter than she is, although on his book cover he appears at least two inches taller; his suit seems too large; and, what is also not evident in the book jacket photos, his curly, heavily gelled black hair has been styled into a definite mullet. She wears a ruffled white blouse with a black vest and slacks that do not quite mesh together at the waist, leaving a distracting white gap. In one way, the two of them seem perfectly matched, or at least symmetrical: his mouth is locked into the inverted triangle of his trademark smile, while her heavy dark brows stamp her face with angry tension, even when the mouth is smiling.
The production values are more sophisticated than the pastors themselves. Live music, extremely loud Christian rock devoid of any remotely African-derived beat, alternates with short bursts of speech in a carefully choreographed pattern. Joel, Victoria, or a senior pastor speaks for three to five minutes—their faces hugely amplified on the three large video screens above and to the sides of the stage—perhaps ending with a verbal segue into the next song, then stepping back as the chorus and lead singers move to center stage. All the while lights on the ceiling change color, dim and brighten, and occasionally flash, strobelike, to the beat. It’s not stand-up-and-boogie music, but most of the congregation at least stands, sways, and raises an arm or two during the musical interludes, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves on the video screens as the cameras pan the audience. “Disney,” mutters the friend who has accompanied me, the wife of a local Baptist minister. But this is just a taping, and the twelve thousand or so of us in the sanctuary (the seats do not fill at either Sunday morning service) are only a studio audience. The real show, an edited version of what we are watching, will reach about seven million television viewers.
Inadvertently, I have come on a Sunday of immense importance to the Osteens, one of the greatest turning points, they aver, in their lives. In the preceding week, a court had dismissed charges against Victoria for assaulting and injuring a flight attendant. The incident occurred in 2005, when they boarded the first-class cabin of a flight bound for Vail, the ski resort, only to leave—or be thrown off —the plane after Victoria
The Osteens—Joel and his copastor and wife, Victoria—when they step forth on the stage for Sunday service to a standing ovationare an attractive couple in their forties, but Joel is not quite the “walking advertisement for the success creed” I had read him described as. 11 He is shorter than she is, although on his book cover he appears at least two inches taller; his suit seems too large; and, what is also not evident in the book jacket photos, his curly, heavily gelled black hair has been styled into a definite mullet. She wears a ruffled white blouse with a black vest and slacks that do not quite mesh together at the waist, leaving a distracting white gap. In one way, the two of them seem perfectly matched, or at least symmetrical: his mouth is locked into the inverted triangle of his trademark smile, while her heavy dark brows stamp her face with angry tension, even when the mouth is smiling.
The production values are more sophisticated than the pastors themselves. Live music, extremely loud Christian rock devoid of any remotely African-derived beat, alternates with short bursts of speech in a carefully choreographed pattern. Joel, Victoria, or a senior pastor speaks for three to five minutes—their faces hugely amplified on the three large video screens above and to the sides of the stage—perhaps ending with a verbal segue into the next song, then stepping back as the chorus and lead singers move to center stage. All the while lights on the ceiling change color, dim and brighten, and occasionally flash, strobelike, to the beat. It’s not stand-up-and-boogie music, but most of the congregation at least stands, sways, and raises an arm or two during the musical interludes, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves on the video screens as the cameras pan the audience. “Disney,” mutters the friend who has accompanied me, the wife of a local Baptist minister. But this is just a taping, and the twelve thousand or so of us in the sanctuary (the seats do not fill at either Sunday morning service) are only a studio audience. The real show, an edited version of what we are watching, will reach about seven million television viewers.
Inadvertently, I have come on a Sunday of immense importance to the Osteens, one of the greatest turning points, they aver, in their lives. In the preceding week, a court had dismissed charges against Victoria for assaulting and injuring a flight attendant. The incident occurred in 2005, when they boarded the first-class cabin of a flight bound for Vail, the ski resort, only to leave—or be thrown off —the plane after Victoria