Comprobaciones previas

For all of the ink that is spilled lamenting and lauding these leaders for being solely focused on money, their messages on Twitter focus more on general inspiration and emphasize their

“brands” through the promotion of their events, interviews, and products. This self-promotion is particularly important among Prosperity Gospel leaders as they use proclamations of their success to reinforce their message that faith results in this-worldly rewards. In other words, their perceived success causes inertia as it validates the Prosperity Gospel’s core philosophy that God wants to bless you. My analysis shows how these three churches and their leaders use Twitter as a way to proclaim and perpetuate their success, creating a perception that God’s favor is upon them, and ideally attracting more people to their message. Twitter is ideal for branding, marketing, and communicating and these pastors are using it for promotion in the same way any

86 For detailed information regarding the coding of these terms, see Appendix B. Intercoder reliability refers to the rate of consensus among the coders regarding, in this case, the category of each term.

business would. Furthermore, my research demonstrates how they focus on general inspirational content rather than theological doctrine, making their message appealing to a broader audience.

It is important to consider that the leaders are speaking to a crowd that includes people who are not subscribers to the Prosperity Gospel, and how the presence of “outsiders” among their followers contributes to the leaders altering the message both online and off, in order to broaden its appeal. It is impossible to determine exactly what percentage of a leader’s followers is supportive of his message, but the responses from the followers help to determine the general audience reaction. While the breadth and anonymity of the Twitter audience makes analysis more complex, it has the potential to help us understand the developments theologically within the Prosperity movement specifically and evangelicalism more broadly.

One component of social media, particularly among celebrities and other well-known users, is that their accounts are often managed and maintained by someone other than the person him/herself. For example, celebrities often have their personal assistants manage their Twitter account so the public has the perception that the celebrity is accessible and communicative, when the celebrity actually has little to do with the posts. In the case of a church or organization, a communications or promotions director might manage the account. For our purposes, this is of particular concern for Joel Osteen, whose schedule is packed with appearances, interviews, and meetings outside of his normal church duties. As a result, it seems likely that he has a more hands-off approach of the content presented in his name on Twitter especially in comparison to the other two pastors in this study. Lakewood’s marketing director, Jason Madding, however, said that while their Communications Director was in charge of the Twitter and Facebook accounts, Joel is “very hands on” and has ultimate determination of the content.⁸⁷ He assured me

87 Oral History via phone with Jason Madding, Promotions Director, Lakewood Church, July 2, 2013.

that everything posted on Osteen’s page represented the pastor’s point of view, faith, and beliefs.

While this is of less concern for Wagner and Nuzzo, both of their churches also have staff handling the marketing and promotion, which includes the management of social media. In the end, all three churches claim the Twitter feed represents the thoughts, beliefs, and doctrine of the pastors regardless of who is managing the day-to-day aspects of its use.

The mandated brevity of tweets also makes Twitter an excellent resource to determine themes within the content of its users. By limiting each tweet to 140 characters, users are necessarily more intentional with their content. While Facebook and other digital outlets allow unlimited content length, Twitter requires users to maintain short clips of information. Jason Madding acknowledged this with regards to Osteen’s Twitter, lamenting the lack of nuance and detail afforded in each tweet. Madding noted, however, that the church has had great success reaching people through the forum, and emphasized how its global and immediate nature provided a valuable resource to their ministry and its ability to grow.⁸⁸ While the leaders often focus on the same themes over and over, they do not repeat tweets. They always have original content even if it’s simply rewording a particular notion repeatedly. In the end, despite its limitations, Twitter allows users to reach a broad and diverse audience that can help the users spread their message at a very limited cost.

All three churches and the pastors maintain Twitter accounts where they tweet informational and inspirational content. Below are examples from Pastor John Nuzzo that is purely informational (linked to his Facebook page) regarding church renovations and a tweet from Oasis Church that is inspirational in its focus on a “blessed life”.

88 Ibid.

Figure 2: John Nuzzo Informational Tweet, Accessed October 18, 2013, www.twitter.com/johnnuzzo

Figure 3: Oasis Church Inspirational Tweet, Accessed January 4, 2013, www.twitter.com/oasisla