RALEIGH -- Karen Spears Zacharias knew she was on to something when she awoke one morning to hear the news that a Georgia couple attributed their $275 million lottery win to God's blessing.
A one-time columnist and editorial writer for The Fayetteville Observer, Zacharias, 53, had already come up with a title for a book: "Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide? ('Cause I need more room for my plasma TV)."
Now she had vivid proof of what she already suspected: that many poor people were susceptible to the theology that preaches that God's love is most vividly displayed in the square-footage of their home.
Robert and Tonya Harris, the lotto winners, lived in a trailer.
Zacharias told the story Sunday night at fundraiser for Love Wins, a Raleigh ministry to homeless people. Proceeds from the book will benefit the ministry.
A folksy, colloquial attack on the prosperity gospel, Zacharias' book takes aim at celebrity evangelists who tout what she calls a "golden calf theology," more focused on teaching that God wants everybody to be rich.
Zacharias, who grew up in a Georgia single-wide, is not out to debunk Christianity. She is a believer, and her book is laced with stories of people who, she thinks, best convey a genuine Christian message. Hugh Hollowell, who founded Love Wins, is one of them.
A former Marine who gave up a successful career as a financial planner, Hollowell now devotes his life to helping homeless people in Moore Square. He is one of the people featured in Zacharias' book, a collection of 19 stories.
About 100 people - including four or five homeless people - showed up at the Meymandi Theatre at the Murphey School for a silent auction and raffle to benefit that ministry. They listened to Hollowell and Zacharias propound their view of the Christian message - one of neighborly love.
Zacharias has a soft spot for homeless people. She thinks they are best qualified to teach the rest of society about community because, unlike the rest of society, they must rely on strangers for their very survival.
Though she no longer lives in a trailer, Zacharias well knows what it's like to be poor. She was 9 years old when her father was killed in Vietnam, and her mother used most of the $10,000 military death benefit to buy a 12-by-60-foot single-wide trailer. There she grew up beside her mother, two siblings, her grandfather, an aunt and a cousin.
"When I was growing up, I thought rich people lived in double-wides," she said. "They had twice the space I did."
Zacharias said she accepted Jesus in that trailer when she was 14 years old. And although she has not always been a model of faith, she never lost her basic orientation as a Christian.
"I have not always clung to God," she said. "But he has always clung to me."
A journalist working for various newspapers over the past 10 years, Zacharias said she was dumbfounded by the success of celebrity evangelists whose ostentatious wealth is supposedly a sign of God's blessing.
She was in the Salt Lake City airport when she picked up a copy of "The Secret." The slim volume by Rhonda Byrne suggests that if people focus hard enough on, say, wealth, the law of attraction will ensure that they become wealthy.
Outraged by the simplicity of that message - and that it had become a bestseller - Zacharias set out to write a book to refute it.
"I was appalled by the notion that the power of positive thinking could attract a Lexus to your garage, cure you of breast cancer or give you an amazing job promotion," she said. "Yet people lapped this up."
Among those who are the target of her criticism are well known preachers such as Benny Hinn and Creflo Dollar, as well as lesser-known evangelists such as Charlotte's David Cerullo.
"There's a mainstream theology that says, 'You give X-amount to God, and he'll give it back tenfold,' " she said. "I think that's a lie."
