Bill Gates Speech at Harvard

Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 1)
Bill Gates Speech at Harvard (part 2)

TIME Magazine Interviews: Robert Kiyosaki

TIME Magazine Interviews: Robert Kiyosaki

Who is Robert Kiyosaki?

Robert T Kiyosaki is a Hawaiian born author and motivational speaker. He studied at the New York U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, joined the Marine Corps and fought in the Vietnam war. Kiyosaki has risen to fame as a motivational author and speaker in the areas of personal finance, real estate, investing and business. His Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books have sold millions of copies worldwide and through his education programs he is reaching thousands of students with his financial messages.

Kiyosaki was born and raised in Hawaii of Japanese / American parents. After moving to New York and graduating from college, Kiyosaki enlisted in the Marine Corps. He become an officer and helicopter gun pilot, serving time in the Vietnam war. Upon his return Kiyosaki worked as a salesman for the Xerox printing and photocopying company.

His first success in the business world came with a company he started in 1977. Kiyosaki’s company was importing nylon and Velcro wallets that went on to become associated with surfers, earning them the title of “surfer wallets” and making Kiyosaki good profits.

Eventually Kiyosaki went on to become an educator in the areas of business and finance. In the mid eighties he established an educational company where students worldwide could learn about his financial philosophies.

Kiyosaki developed a board game to educate people financially, while at the same time remaining entertaining. The Cashflow 101 board game went on to become very successful for Kiyosaki. Cashflow 101 is now also available online, where players are able to learn the basics of investing and personal finance.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Robert Kiyosaki’s real success came with a series of books based on the rich dad and poor dad characters. Kiyosaki writes the books in an entertaining method where financial novices can remain entertained and at the same time learn his personal finance theories. The rich dad, poor dad characters are fictional people, loosely based on people in Kiyosaki’s life. Basically, poor dad is the man that goes to work hard for his money in a government job, just getting by each week, paying the bills and feeding the family. Eventually going on to retire poor and unhappy. Rich dad is more of a risk taker and uses his money to invest in real estate and businesses, eventually leading to an abundance of financial wealth where he retires early with a large fortune.

The Rich Dad, Poor Dad series consists of more than 8 books based on themes of investing, real estate, personal finance and business motivation. Many of them have gone on to become best sellers in their genre with the most popular (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) selling more than 17 million copies.

Kiyosaki Critics
Robert Kiyosaki has created a loyal group of many followers world wide with his financial philosophies, but there are also critics of his teachings. Some critics have accused Kiyosaki of giving novice investors false hope and encouraging them to make financially risky investment decisions, especially in the areas of real estate.

Summary
Kiyosaki briefly retired at the age 47 in 1994. He remains involved with the Rich Dad educational company, aiming to spread his financial literacy message worldwide. Other founding members of the educational group include his Wife Kim Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechture, CPA (co-author of the popular Rich Dad, Poor Dad book).

Credits: Woopidoo

The Best from Anthony Robbins

The Best from Anthony Robbins

Who is Anthony Robbins?

Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist

World Authority on Leadership Psychology

For the past three decades, Anthony Robbins has served as an advisor to leaders around the world. A recognized authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiations, organizational turnaround, and peak performance, he has been honored consistently for his strategic intellect and humanitarian endeavors. His nonprofit Anthony Robbins Foundation provides assistance to inner-city youth, senior citizens, and the homeless, and feeds more than three million people in 56 countries every year through its international holiday “Basket Brigade.” Robbins has directly impacted the lives of more than 50 million people from over 100 countries with his best-selling books, multimedia and health products, public speaking engagements, and live events.

What began as a young person’s desire to help individuals transform the quality of their lives has grown into Robbins’ lifelong crusade as he is called on by leaders from every walk of life-presidents, political leaders, advocates for humanity, CEOs of multinational corporations, psychologists, peak performance athletes, world-class entertainers, teachers, and parents. Since fathering the life coaching industry, Robbins has produced the #1-selling audio coaching system of all time. He also is a corporate Vice Chairman, and Chairman overseeing five private companies. Robbins has been honored by Accenture as one of the “Top 50 Business Intellectuals in the World”; by Harvard Business Press as one of the “Top 200 Business Gurus”; by American Express as one of the “Top Six Business Leaders in the World” to coach its entrepreneurial clients; by Forbes as a Top 100 Celebrity; by Justice Byron White as one of the world’s “Outstanding Humanitarians”; and by the International Chamber of Commerce as one of the top 10 “Outstanding Young People of World.”

Peace Negotiator & Humanitarian

Robbins was selected as Vice Chairman of Health, Education, and Science for the United Nations Research Center for the International Council for Caring Communities (ICCC) NGO. Working with the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Robbins participated as one of the members of the team that helped negotiate an electoral solution for peace to the strife and conflict that have devastated the Venezuelan people and their economy. Robbins has collaborated with political and business leaders in diverse world communities such as South Africa, England, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, and the United States. Robbins has also been a national spokesperson for the Wellness Community, a nonprofit organization that provides support, education and hope to people with cancer and their loved ones. Through participation in professionally led support groups and educational workshops, people affected by cancer learn vital skills that enable them to regain control, reduce isolation and restore hope, regardless of the stage of disease. Through his strategies for “Leadership in Times of Crisis” and his systems for “Indirect Negotiations,” Robbins has participated in negotiations that have broken the patterns of violence and de-escalated the rhetoric that invites it. Robbins has worked on teams that not only help mitigate further devastation and facilitate peaceful decision-making among conflicting parties, but also inspire conflicting parties to create a mutually beneficial and compelling vision that is aligned with their respective values, raising the standard by which they live. He is also the recipient of the Timmie Award, given by the esteemed Touchdown Club of Washington, D.C for humanitarian efforts.

Strategic Advisor to World Leaders

Robbins has met with, consulted, or advised international leaders including Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa. He has consulted members of two royal families, members of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marines and three U.S. Presidents, including Bill Clinton. Robbins has had the unique opportunity to identify patterns and model the underlying strategies generating consistent results for some of the most successful individuals in the world.

Successful Entrepreneur & Honored Business Strategist

A successful entrepreneur, Robbins serves as Chairman of seven privately held companies in industries as diverse as hospitality, education, media production, business services, and neutraceuticals, and he holds an interest in and strategically directs a series of others. While diverse in characterization, all seven companies—plus his five holding companies—are geared toward Robbins’ creed of improving the quality of life for people around the world: from Namale Resort & Spa, the award-winning, 325-acre tropical paradise in the Fiji Islands, to Twinlab Corporation, the highest-rated neutraceutical company honored in 2003 with the Consumer Satisfaction Award as Top Rated Retail Brand by Consumerlab.com, an independent testing group. Robbins’ pursuit of creating and contributing to a higher standard of living is reflected by one of his subsidiary companies, Rebus Publishing, a leading consumer health and science publisher that has been communicating healthy ideas for more than 25 years through such avenues as the “UC Berkeley Wellness Letter” and “Johns Hopkins Health After 50” newsletter. Robbins was also the first individual in the personal improvement industry to surpass more than a billion dollars in gross sales.

Leaders and achievers already at the pinnacle of success in their respective fields call on Robbins to be their strategic advisor when they face critical decisions requiring creative options and a systematic evaluation of probabilities and consequences. American Express asked its entrepreneurial clients whom they would select if they could choose anyone in the world to personally coach them to take their businesses to the next level if price were no object. Robbins was chosen along with Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, Lee Iacocca and Ross Perot.

Philanthropist

A founding strategist of the Presidential Summit for America’s Promise, Robbins partnered in helping to design systems that generated over two million mentors for young people throughout the United States. Four Presidents and Secretary of State Colin Powell partnered with Robbins in the process. What began nearly 30 years ago as Robbins’ individual effort to feed two homeless families has now grown into the Anthony Robbins Foundation’s international holiday “Basket Brigade,” which feeds more than three million people in 56 countries every year. His foundation has provided support or initiated programs in more than 2,000 schools, 700 prisons and 100,000 service organizations and shelters. Almost 20 years ago, Robbins personally sponsored a class of disadvantaged fifth graders in Houston, Texas, by becoming their personal mentor and sponsor of their college education. In 2003, these student “Champions” graduated from college—an experience that Robbins made possible. Each year, Robbins oversees his foundation’s Discovery Camp, which helps more than 100 students from 18 countries design and initiate leadership programs to take home to their local schools.

Award-Winning Speaker

In addition to his global efforts to facilitate leadership, peace and philanthropy, Robbins is an award-winning speaker who has addressed such distinguished audiences as the British Parliament, Harvard Business School, the Gorbachev Foundation’s Cold War Forum, the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, the State of the World Forum, Vice President Al Gore’s Putting Customers First Conference, and the World Economic Forum. In 2006, he was invited to speak at the prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference, attended by the world’s most influential thinkers and leaders, including the founders of Google and Vice President Al Gore. His speech is one of the top ten most viewed in the history of TED, with more than two million views. Toastmasters International recognized Robbins as one of the world’s greatest speakers, awarding him the Golden Gavel Award, its most prestigious honor. One of the most sought-after speakers in the world, more than four million people from over 100 countries have attended Anthony Robbins’ live seminars, speaking engagements or training programs.

Internationally Best-Selling Author

Robbins is an internationally best-selling author with five books published in 14 languages, and he is the creator of the #1 personal and professional development system of all time, Personal Power; more than 40 million audiotapes have been sold worldwide. Robbins has created a system of total immersion that produces the education, strategies, and momentum for measurable and lasting change. Robbins is also the founder of Mastery University, which brings together the world’s leading experts from their respective fields. In the past, Robbins’ co-facilitators have included General Norman Schwarzkopf and Secretary of State Colin Powell on leadership, Dr. Deepak Chopra on psychoneuroimmunology, Peter Lynch and Sir John Templeton on finance, and Vice President Al Gore on creating peace in troubled times.

Mass Media Veteran

Robbins has developed and produced five award-winning television infomercials that have continuously aired on average every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day somewhere in North America since their initial introduction in April 1989. Recently, Robbins has created a series of six television shows that will air on primetime NBC in the summer of 2010. His work has been featured in major media including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Forbes, Life, GQ, Vanity Fair, Business Week, Tycoon and Success magazines, the CBS Evening News, NBC News, ABC’s Prime Time Live, Fox News, CNN and A&E as well as newspapers, radio programs, and Internet media worldwide. Robbins has been mentioned or featured in 15 major motion pictures, including a cameo role in the hit movie “Shallow Hal.” In 2007, he was named to Forbes magazine’s “Celebrity 100” list.

Authority on Peak Performance

Highly respected as the nation’s foremost authority on the psychology of peak performance and personal, professional, and organizational turnaround, Robbins has advised and counseled Fortune 500 CEOs, world-renowned medical doctors, legends in entertainment, and championship sports teams including America’s Cup winner, America 3; Stanley Cup finalist, Los Angeles Kings; NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs; and other teams from the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. He has worked with elite coaches and athletes, including UFC Champion Chuck Liddell, tennis greats André Agassi and Serena Williams, and golf legend Greg Norman, along with champions from the National Football League, the PGA Tour, the U.S. Tennis Association and NASCAR. He has also coached various celebrities and musicians including Leonardo DiCaprio and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day.

Innovator in Psychology and Intervention

As a recognized catalyst for developing systems and strategies for accelerated and lasting transformations in individuals worldwide, Robbins has been sought after by psychologists and psychiatrists for training. Robbins, along with his partner Cloe Madanes, created almost ten years ago the Robbins-Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention, which produces training materials and programs for the therapeutic community. Together they have trained more than 100,000 therapists. For more than 20 years, Madanes has served as world-renowned teacher of therapists. Two of her books are considered classic texts—Strategic Family Therapy and The Violence of Men. Robbins appeared as a featured author in one of her books—Relationship Breakthrough: How to Create Outstanding Relationships in Every Area of Your Life. Robbins and Madanes are actively involved in the Council for Human Rights of Children at the University of San Francisco, a prestigious international think tank created to develop and codify methods to ensure the rights of children are maintained and championed. Robbins was among the speakers featured at the Council’s 2005 meeting at the University of Oxford, where he addressed “Alternatives to Institutionalization of Children and Youth in Crisis.” He also has been a featured speaker at The Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference, the world’s largest psychotherapy conference that brings together more than 10,000 industry leaders from around the world every five years.

Family Man

Robbins’ commitment to creating an enduring legacy that will impact the world is surpassed only by his passion for family as a dedicated father of four children and a loving husband to his wife, Sage “Bonnie Pearl” Robbins.

Credits: Tony Robbins

Paulo Coelho Interview

Paulo Coelho Interview

Paolo Coelho – “The Alchemist”

Biography

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He attended a Jesuit school. As a teenager, Coelho wanted to become a writer. Upon telling his mother this, she responded with “My dear, your father is an Engineer. He’s a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?” After researching, Coelho concluded that a writer “always wears glasses and never combs his hair” and has a “duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation,” amongst other things. At 17, Coelho’s introversion and opposition to following a traditional path led to his parents committing him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho later remarked that “It wasn’t that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn’t know what to do… They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me.”

At his parents’ wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and becoming immersed in the drug culture of the 1960s. Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Paulo being associated with satanism and occultism, due to the content of some songs. In 1974, Coelho was arrested and tortured for “subversive” activities by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist, and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.

In 1986, Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, a turning point in his life. On the path, Coelho had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage.  In an interview, Coelho stated “[In 1986], I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water — to use the metaphor in “The Alchemist”, I was working, I had a person who I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.” Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

Writing career

In 1982 Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make any kind of impact. In 1986 he contributed to the Practical Manual of Vampirism, although he later tried to take it off the shelves since he considered it “of bad quality.” After making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986, Coelho wrote The Pilgrimage. The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house who made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint. He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida, The Alchemist became a Brazilian bestseller. The Alchemist has gone on to sell more than 30 million copies, becoming one of the best-selling books in history, and has been translated into more than 67 languages, winning the Guinness World Record for most translated book by a living author.

Since the publication of The Alchemist, Coelho has generally written one novel every two years including By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, Like the Flowing River, The Valkyries and The Witch of Portobello. This dates back to The Pilgrimage; while trying to overcome his procrastination of launching his writing career, Coelho said “If I see a white feather today, that is a sign that God is giving me that I have to write a new book.” Coelho found a white feather in the window of a shop, and began writing that day.

In total, Coelho has published 26 books. Two of them — The Pilgrimage and The Valkyries — are autobiographical, while the majority of the rest are fictional, although rooted in his life experiences. Others, like Maktub and The Manual of the Warrior of Light, are collections of essays, newspaper columns, or selected teachings. In total, Coelho has sold more than 100 million books in over 150 countries worldwide, and his works have been translated into 67 languages. He is the all-time bestselling Portuguese language author.

Currently, Coelho publishes short stories for Ode Magazine. Every issue devotes a page to Coelho for his writing pleasure.

Adaptations

Several of Coelho’s books have been adapted into other media.

In 2003, Warner Bros. bought the rights to the film adaptation of The Alchemist. The project stalled and the movie never materialized, reportedly for problems with the script. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Harvey Weinstein announced that he had bought the rights to the film and will serve as its producer. Laurence Fishburne is set to direct, and to play the eponymous character. The movie will have a reported budget of $60 million. Veronika Decides to Die has also been adapted into a screenplay by Das Films with Muse Productions and Velvet Steamroller Entertainment. The film began shooting on May 12, 2008 with Emily Young directing and Sarah Michelle Gellar starring.

In June 2007, Paulo Coelho announced The Experimental Witch Project, a collaborative project based on The Witch of Portobello.

Personal life

Coelho and his wife split time living in Europe and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was raised Catholic and although he attends Mass, he disagrees with the Pope on several issues, both political and social.

In 1996, Coelho founded the Paulo Coelho Institute, which provides aid to children and elderly people with financial problems. In September 2007, Coelho was named a Messenger of Peace to the United Nations.

• Member of the Board of the Shimon Peres Center for Peace
• UNESCO special counsellor for “Intercultural Dialogues and Spiritual Convergences”
• Board Member of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
• Member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
• Member of INI International Advisory Council – HARVARD INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION INITIATIVE
• Member of the Board, Doha Center of Media Freedom
• Advisory Board Member, Maybach Foundation

Credits: Wikipedia

T. Harv Eker: Success Is Easy

What is success or failure, really? Id argue that both are simply the inevitable result of a series of activities. One set of activities moves you toward achievement of your goals, and another set leaves you disappointed and empty-handed.

Its the simple things done over long periods of time that will give you permanent and constant results.

Most of the time, if you simply did what you really needed to do and WHEN you needed to do it, success would be simple.

The Secret to Riches

Law of attraction is forming your entire life experience and it is doing that through your thoughts. When you are visualizing, you are emitting a powerful frequency out into the Universe.

Abundance in all areas including health, happiness, and wealth, is your rightful heritage. Bring yourself into harmony with abundance with this powerful visualization tool, The Secret To Riches.

Every time you watch The Secret to Riches, read every word and focus your energy and feelings to magnetize abundance into your life. The more you can feel, the more power you will add to bring abundance to you.

Was Jesus wealthy?

I found this very interesting article about Jesus in CNN.com. Was Jesus really poor or was he really rich? You decide…

Passions over ‘prosperity gospel’: Was Jesus wealthy?

By John Blake, CNN

(CNN) — Each Christmas, Christians tell stories about the poor baby Jesus born in a lowly manger because there was no room in the inn.

But the Rev. C. Thomas Anderson, senior pastor of the Living Word Bible Church in Mesa, Arizona, preaches a version of the Christmas story that says baby Jesus wasn’t so poor after all.

Anderson says Jesus couldn’t have been poor because he received lucrative gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh — at birth. Jesus had to be wealthy because the Roman soldiers who crucified him gambled for his expensive undergarments. Even Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph, lived and traveled in style, he says.

“Mary and Joseph took a Cadillac to get to Bethlehem because the finest transportation of their day was a donkey,” says Anderson. “Poor people ate their donkey. Only the wealthy used it as transportation.”

Many Christians see Jesus as the poor, itinerant preacher who had “no place to lay his head.” But as Christians gather around the globe this year to celebrate the birth of Jesus, another group of Christians are insisting that Jesus’ beginnings weren’t so humble.

They say that Jesus was never poor — and neither should his followers be. Their claim is embedded in the doctrine known as the prosperity gospel, which holds that God rewards the faithful with financial prosperity and spiritual gifts.

A clash of gospels?

The prosperity gospel has attracted plenty of critics. But popular televangelists such as the late Oral Roberts, Kenneth Hagin and, today, Creflo Dollar have built megachurches and a global audience by equating piety with prosperity.

The prosperity gospel, however, clashes with the traditional depictions of Jesus as poor. That’s because the traditional image of Jesus as destitute is wrong, says the Rev. Tom Brown, senior pastor of the Word of Life Church in El Paso, Texas.

The proof, he says, is scattered throughout the New Testament. One example: The 12th chapter of the Gospel of John says that Jesus had a treasurer, or a “keeper of the money bag.”

“The last time I checked, poor people don’t have treasurers to take care their money,” says Brown, author of “Devil, Demons and Spiritual Warfare.”

A debate over the economic status of Jesus may seem nonsensical to some. Does it really matter whether Jesus was rich or poor?

It matters to people like Luke Timothy Johnson, a prominent New Testament scholar and author. He says that a rich Jesus is a distortion of history and a threat to one of Christianity’s core teachings: God’s identification with the poor.

“If Jesus reveals God, there is something powerful about God appearing and working among the poor,” says Johnson, a New Testament professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Jesus’ lifestyle is not of one in a gated community or a corporate office,” says Johnson, a former Benedictine monk. “You don’t have to go through a security gate to get to Jesus. People touch him. He reached out and touched children. His accessibility is one of the most powerful messages of Christianity. In Jesus, God is with us, and the majority of us are poor.”

‘The poor won’t follow the poor’

Some prosperity preachers extract a different message from the same biblical texts. Brown, the El Paso minister, says he doesn’t say that Jesus was rich because he wants to give people an excuse to live self-indulgent lives. He wants people to understand that Jesus used his material and spiritual riches to help people — and so should they.

Brown says Jesus’ own words prove that he wasn’t poor.

“Jesus said you will always have the poor, but you will not always have me,” Brown says. “Jesus did not affirm himself as being part of the poor class…

“I believe he was the richest man on the face of the earth because he had God as his source,” Brown says.

Jesus’ wealth is evident even in the Gospel accounts of his execution, some pastors say.

The New Testament reports that Roman soldiers gambled for Jesus’ clothing while he hung on the cross. They wouldn’t gamble for Jesus’ clothing unless it was expensive, Anderson says.

“I don’t know anybody — even Pamela Anderson — that would have people gambling for his underwear,” Anderson says. “That was some fine stuff he wore.”

Anderson says Jesus never would have had disciples or a large following if he was poor. He would not have been able to command their respect.

“The poor will follow the rich, the rich will follow the rich, but the rich will never follow the poor,” Anderson says.

Twisting scripture for personal gain?

Johnson, the Emory University New Testament professor, calls Anderson’s argument “completely illogical.”

“So Martin Luther King must have been a millionaire,” he says. “Crowds followed Siddhartha Buddha and he was poor. And mobs followed Mahatma Gandhi, and Gandhi wore a diaper, for God’s sake.”

The argument that Jesus was wealthy because the soldiers gambled for his clothes at his crucifixion doesn’t makes historical sense, either, says Johnson, author of “Among the Gentiles: Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity.”

“Crucifixion was the sort of execution carried out for slaves and for rebels,” Johnson says. “It wasn’t an execution for wealthy people.”

A Baylor University religion professor who specializes in the study of the poor in the Greco-Roman world also says there is “no way” that Jesus could be considered wealthy.

Bruce W. Longenecker says life in Jesus’ world was brutal. About 90 percent of people lived in poverty. A famine or a bad crop could ruin a family. There was no middle class.

“In the ancient world, you were relatively poor or filthy rich, there’s very little in-between,” says Longenecker, author of “Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception.”

The New Testament is full of parables where Jesus actually condemns the rich and praises the poor, Longenecker says. In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus actually curses the rich, he says.

“The only way you can make Jesus into a rich man is by advocating torturous interpretations and by being wholly naive historically,” Longenecker says.

Anderson, the Arizona pastor, doesn’t buy that argument. He says the church has actually been damaged by teaching that Jesus was poor. God wants his followers to be rich, not for selfish gain, but to help others in need and spread the gospel.

When he first preached that Jesus wasn’t poor to his church, Anderson says he “ruffled some feathers.”

Now, he says, his church has 9,000 members and a global ministry.

“That’s so pathetic, to say that Jesus was struggling alone in the dust and dirt,” Anderson says. “That just makes no sense whatsoever. He was constantly in a state of wealth.”

SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/12/25/RichJesus/index.html

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