The Bishop of Bling - The Washington Post "Pope Francis temporarily relieved a spendthrift German bishop of his post Wednesday, taking an extraordinary step against a church official whose penchant for luxury living appeared to clash with the new pope's efforts to foster a more humble church," wrote The Washington Post's Michael Birnbaum. Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst is caught in a scandal over a multimillion-dollar renovation of his official church residence in the western town of Limburg. The media has dubbed him the bishop of bling. Charles McPhedran, reporting for USA Today, writes that among the reported $42 million in upgrades in the home is a $20,000 bathtub and $34,000 conference table. Birnbaum reports that prosecutors in Hamburg have opened an investigation into whether the bishop had lied in an affidavit after the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported in 2012 that he had flown first-class on a trip to India for a church mission to the poor. I thought about this bishop as I was watching the "Preachers of L.A.," which is generating controversy over the pastors" own bling, which they boast about on the show. "Men of the cloth cruise Southern California in lavish cars weighed down by their gold watches and tiny dogs," Kate Bowler, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity in the United States at Duke Divinity School, wrote in a blog post for CNN. Even to sympathizers, the show seems to reaffirm all the negative stereotypes about greedy prosperity preachers more interested in bling than the Bible. Still, Bowler argues, "underneath all the hype about the lifestyle of its preachers, there is serious theology at work . . . If you look past the Rolexes, Mercedes, gold chains and monogrammed pocket squares, you might see something surprising. These pastors, bejeweled as they are, would never want their lifestyle to be a barrier to their evangelism. As my own research shows, millions of American Christians have turned to the prosperity gospel to help them understand God as deeply invested in their everyday lives. They want a God who cares about their heath, their mortgage payments and their ability to afford a better life. Still, a recent blog post on oxygen.com reads: "If you've seen "Preachers of L.A.," you've most likely seen some incredibly hot rides. Preachers have to get from point A to point B, too, and these men of faith happen to be living in L.A. -- aka the greatest car city in the world. The blog contains a gallery of photos of the ministers primping in front of their cars, which include a Porsche, Bentley and Ferrari. I don't object to religious leaders prospering if they haven't taken a vow of poverty. But I do find it distasteful when people brag about their bling. You can show people that you live well without overly glorifying your prosperity.