Columbus native Karen Zacharias has nothing against trailers, or people who live in them.

That’s the first thing she’d have you know.

She had her first kiss in a trailer, smoked her first (and last) cigarette in a trailer, asked Jesus into her heart in a trailer and gave birth to her first child in a trailer. So she has no qualms about taking up residence in one.

Rather, her latest book, “Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide (’Cause I Need More Room for My Plasma TV?”) (Zondervan, $16.99) takes to task a growing trend in some religious circles: that God wants you to prosper both financially and in health and that if you aren’t, something is wrong with your faith.

“It’s a form of voodoo Christianity. You’re poking pins and hoping to get the results you want,” said Zacharias, who will sign copies of the book at Barnes & Noble on Sunday. She will also lead the adult education forum at 9:15 a.m. Sunday at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and preach at the 10:30 service.

A former business reporter for this newspaper, Zacharias has four other books to her name: “Benched” (about Muscogee County Superior Court Judge Rufe McCombs, now retired); “After the Flag Has Been Folded” (about her father, David Spears, who was killed in Vietnam); “Hero Mama” (about her mother, Shelby Spears); and “Where’s Your Jesus Now?” (exploring a few crossroads of faith and culture).

‘Prosperity gospel’

Yet of all her books, this latest one seems to have struck the biggest chord with readers, she said. It officially launched Tuesday at the Georgia Center for the Book in Atlanta. Representatives from Zondervan flew in.

“Double-Wide” is a blend of the humorous and tragic, both of which Southerners grasp well.

William Paul Young, author of “The Shack” has endorsed it, as has comedian Jeff Foxworthy and the Rev. Steve Brown of Florida, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America who has a national radio show.

The “prosperity gospel,” as the term is known, makes little to no room for suffering and mystery. The general idea is that one’s life keeps getting better and better as one grows in faith — better jobs, better cars and yes, even plasma TVs. More bling.

“It’s a theology that leaves you with two options,” Zacharias said in an interview. “If you lose your job or you get cancer or if your child is killed in a car wreck, you can be angry at God because He didn’t live up to His word; or you feel guilty because you must have disappointed God.

“I don’t want that kind of faith.”

Each chapter of the book — with such titles as “The Preacher,” “The Veteran,” “The Evangelist” and “The Giver” — describes an actual person. The true identities of them are mostly hidden. A few live in Columbus. In most cases, Zacharias conducted interviews with her subjects, giving flesh to the prosperity gospel. She did not interview “The Evangelist” (known in real life as Joyce Meyer) but conducted research and talked to people who follow this Christian author and teacher.

“Who would want to get in on something where you’re miserable, poor, broke and ugly and you just have to muddle through to get to heaven?” Zacharias quotes Meyer as saying. “I believe God wants us to have nice things.”

Zacharias grew up in Columbus’ Rose Hill Baptist Church, under the leadership of the Rev. Bill Smith. She remains close with him and his wife, Betty.

After studying two years at Berry College in Rome, Ga., Zacharias, now 53, moved to Oregon where her mother had relocated. She then went to Oregon State, where she met her husband, Tim, through Campus Crusade for Christ. They married in 1978 and have four children: a boy and three girls. (Her son Stephan was the one born in a trailer.) Tim is a teacher in Hermiston, Ore.

Tim’s parents, Gene and Gwyn Zacharias, were missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Ecuador. They followed right on the heels of missionaries Jim Elliott and four others who were martyred there for their faith.

Prospering beyond money

“Double-Wide” isn’t completely critical of the likes of Meyer. Some of the chapters highlight people who do not follow the prosperity gospel. They include “the Redhead,” Zacharias’ best friend Connie Henricks of Oregon who died of cancer last summer. Refusing all pain medication, despite the spread of the disease to her bones, Zacharias said Henricks was intentional about being aware to the end.

She quotes Henricks in the book: “If I had created my own body, then I would possibly know how to bring about perfect health, but God created it and only God can bring about perfect health.”

These nine months later, tears are still fresh for her friend.

“My youngest daughter is named for her,” Zacharias said. “Connie was the first friend I made in Oregon and she came to Columbus with me. She loved the South, the stories and the people. Whenever I traveled, she wanted to go. She loved my job as a writer. She’d call me up and say, ‘Can I come?’ ”

Despite her worsening illness, the pair spent two weeks together in 2008 in Fairhope, Ala., when Zacharias was writer-in-residence there.

One of Henricks’ favorite verses was Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. ... ”

“She does not treat God as if he is her personal assistant,” Zacharias writes of her friend. “She does not order Him to go fetch this thing or that thing. She does not expect God to be her personal banker. … But God is her hope and her assurance. He is her comfort and provider.”

Those who follow the prosperity gospel often quote Bibles verses such as Jeremiah 29:11, part of which says God wants to “prosper” His people. Zacharias believes prosper means something deeper than money.

A woman recently challenged her on this: Doesn’t God want Christians to flourish? Zacharias replied: “Not in U.S. currency.”

Debunking the Sugar-Daddy God

In his bestselling book, “Your Best Life Now,” megachurch preacher Joel Osteen of Texas writes that Christians “will often receive preferential treatment simply because your Father is the King of kings, and His glory and honor spill over onto you.” He has said he prays for prime parking spots at shopping malls, and when getting one chalks it up to God’s favor.

This kind of thinking can be hurtful, Zacharias said.

“It’s not harmless to sell sugar-coated theology,” Zacharias said. “It’s a version of the Sugar-Daddy God, because when you get into a situation like the Redhead, it will fail you. Connie knew God. The theology sold by ‘The Secret’ (by Rhonda Byrne) and ‘Your Best Life Now’ is utter cotton candy.”

If she had her way, she’d prefer that Osteen — whom she considers a fine motivational speaker — not wrap his words in the Bible.

Part of the danger of this gospel, she added, is putting ourselves at the center of the universe instead of God.

The prosperity gospel is actually not new.

For instance, the “Protest work ethic” is a sort of prosperity gospel — that is, if we work hard enough, good things — including more riches — will come our way. That teaching is more imbedded in the culture. But then along come major challenges like the U.S. recession and many people of faith begin to question God’s presence when their money or jobs slip away.

Zacharias knows about this first hand. Until 2008, she was the editorial page editor and a columnist for the Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer. When she landed the job, she felt she’d arrived. At her desk just six months, downsizing from the recession knocked her out.

“It was heart-breaking. My editor cried when he told me,” she said.

She never believed God was against her, or that she’d let God down in some way.

Then there was a story she read about a Savannah couple who hit the lottery and they said God had blessed them. “I said, ‘Are you serious?’ It’s wrong. It’s not God. It’s arrogance,” she said.

Which makes her wonder, when she comes across things like this, what about the starving children in the Sudan? Does God not bless them, too?

Allison Kennedy, 706-576-6237