Lifestyles of the Rich and Christian Ministers on Donations

[RamboLiberal]

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2976684&page=1

Anyone watching televangelists on television will hear plenty of pitches for money. Jan and Paul Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting say they need big bucks to keep their network on the air and to help the poor around the world.

<snip>

The givers are very confident that they will. One parishioner told ABC News that "when I give to this church, I know that my money's being put to excellent use. Without one question." While her pastor, Fred Price of Ever Increasing Faith Ministries, does support inner city programs with donors' money, she's apparently not bothered when he also boasts that "I live in a 25-room mansion, I have my own $6 million yacht, I have my own private jet and I have my own helicopter and I have seven luxury automobiles."

<snip>

The popular Kenneth Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries lives in a large mansion in Texas. He recently asked his audience to help him spread the gospel by giving him $20 million to buy a new jet. Copeland promised that the plane "will never, ever be used as long as it is in our care, for anything other than what is becoming to you, Lord Jesus."

Our ABC affiliate in Dallas, WFAA, took a closer look. Reporter Brett Shipp obtained flight records that revealed that the Copeland jet, on its way to an evangelical seminar in Australia last October, made a two-day layover in Maui. Then it was on to the Fiji islands for another stop.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/bshipp/stories/wfaa070228_mo_churchjet.87be631.html

<snip>

Last December, amid other evangelical stops, there was a jet ride to the Yampa Valley Airport in Colorado, just a few miles away from Steamboat Springs Ski Resort.

That same day, the jet flew back to the Copelands' private airport north of Fort Worth.

Five days later, the jet traveled to the Yampa Valley Airport near Steamboat and returned to Texas.

One week later, there was another trip. This time, to the LaFonda Ranch in Southwest Texas, a favorite stop over the years for Kenneth Copeland and his son, John.

<snip>

A picture taken of Copeland and his son John shows them proudly posing with a pair of axis deer indigenous to India and Sri Lanka.

[karlrschneider]

1. All the mega-preachers want private jets, most of them have one.

I bump into their crews often in Tulsa, Dallas, Little Rock, Mobile etc. Most pilots are Republicans (I don't know why) but these guys (without exception immaculately coifed, white, and male) are absolutely fucking scary. I always make a point to ask them how it feels to be a whore. One of them a while back told me he wanted to punch me in the nose. I said "try it, you'll need a lot of Jesus Miracles to replace the teeth you'll be missing."

:grr:

[Turbineguy]

3. My daughter was hooked up

with a fundie church for a while. I don't argue about it with her, she has critical thinking skills.

She was troubled by the Minister's wife's attitude toward getting a Corvette to drive around in. These boys were obviously not in the televangelists league but seem to do better than most of their marks, I mean flock. My daughter changed churches well before the new minister arrived, with his own helicopter.

A nice, tax-free commercial enterprise.

I really can't blame these people for wanting to live like top end dope dealers. And if I could afford a private jet, I just might get one. Of course, I'm not on a Mission from God to go skiing either.

[karlrschneider]

9. Marks is the right word. I could write a short book about my connections with the

Anal....uh, I mean Oral Roberts clan. But I'm too lazy. ;-)

To be perfectly honest, if I had scads of money (that was actually -earned-) I might buy myself a Learjet or something similar but that won't happen so I'll just keep driving them for rich people and get paid for it. And yes, I'm somewhat a whore, but then how many of us aren't, to a degree? :eyes:

[madrchsod]

2. my mother always thought that these guys

take money away from the local churches...and they do

[Critters2]

4. They do indeed. They take the money from nice folks who then

turn to local pastors to visit them in the hospital or nursing home, counsel them through crises, preach their funerals. And the never seem to grasp that Jerry and Pat and Joel did nothing for them but take their hard-earned money. :mad:

[papau]

5. Fred Price is old and getting fat so I can relate to him - and for the 30 or so

years since I first noticed him I have not seen a dishonest thing in anything he has done. Indeed 30 years ago he said that while he understood and applauded those living on little and giving to the poor, he was not going to make himself poor so as to give more to the poor, and that those that wanted their pastor to act in that manner should find another congregation.

I had never heard such straight talk from a TV preacher before and it impressed me. I prefer going to church to the TV - so Fred never got a dime from me.

But if the implication of the ABC report is that people are being ripped off by pastors hiding their taking a good sized percentage of the giving as their own income - then Fred should not be included, because he has never hid anything. Indeed it is only of late that the size of his taking from the giving became so heavy - making me wonder why the increase in avarice.

[MikeNearMcChord]

6. Funny didn't Jesus say you can't serve God and mammon?

[varkam]

7. You mean televangelists *lie*?!

Shocked. Shocked I tell you.

[tanyev]

8. Sweet! Ministrywatch.com is dedicated to tracking what ministry groups do with their money.

Leonard and his wife, Carol, gave millions to Christian charities before they decided they needed to look deeper. He told us that "we've all been trained to not even think, to just give the money over and not ask questions and to just not be good stewards. And all the satisfaction we get is in the act of giving, not of making sure that actual good work gets done."

As a result, Leonard started up the research group Ministrywatch. They asked Christian ministries and charities to reveal their finances. At first it was tough going, since, he says, "nobody had ever held them to account from an independent perspective. So they were totally freaked out by it."

Many said no, others threatened to sue. Leonard wasn't intimidated. He says his attitude was "bring it on. And you know, frankly, they like to threaten that, but they don't actually like to do it. Because if they did it, they would raise the awareness of the whole problem to a higher level."

List of 28 groups they have determined have little or no transparency:
http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/pdf/tw1102.pdf

[SalmonChantedEvening]

10. Doin' the Diamond Trail for Jeebus!

And Peenya Colakkas all around in Fiji!

And yet the money keeps coming in, despite all of this.

:argh: