On this season, we'll be covering our vehicles of hysteria, how pop culture and the media shape our psychology and society, and how our national mythologies manipulate the realities we share

and sometimes the realities we don't. I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American

hysteria. And now speaking for Christ and against communism, I want you to get out the largest bill that you have right now.

And I said, because I was faithful, God's now giving me a Cadillac.

Hallelujah.

The news anchors will be amazed at how great America is because God is great in America again.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

You've probably made fun of them in the uncanniness of their makeuped faces and sculpted hair.

You've probably mimicked their accents and parroted their more outrageous incendiary claims

and their toothy empty promises and slew of suspect miracles.

Maybe you've been disgusted at their hypocrisy and reveled in the financial and sexual scandals

that brought their flashy empires crashing to the ground. Or maybe you've been genuinely

angry at them, furious at them, watching a family member conned out of their hard-earned money,

while at the same time growing more radical in particular kinds of political beliefs that are

now so aligned with the celebrity Christianity.

Televangelists and all their fiery, outdated pomp, are easy to not take seriously, especially now.

But the influence of prominent and patriotic white evangelicals in American politics has been enormous since the foundation of the moral majority in the early 1970s, with unnerving roots that seem long forgotten, covered up in the stories they preach of societal decay, abortion, gay marriage, and more specifically

for cranky elf Pat Robertson, lesbian witchcraft.

But for millions, these figures still hold the promise of a better life through what is

known as the prosperity gospel, convincing viewers that the generosity of their donations

will return to them tenfold in fantastical financial ways, because, as they command, spreading

the gospel through these particular vessels of God is the best thing you can do for your fellow

...