Saint Matthew's "Churches"

In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pseudonymous author Climacus complains:

Usually people abhor denying that [an eternal happiness] exists; so they include it but, just by including it, show that they do not include it. I do not know whether one should laugh or weep on hearing the enumeration: a good job, a beautiful wife, health, the rank of a councilor of justice - and in addition an eternal happiness, which is the same as assuming that the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom along with all the other kingdoms on earth and that one would look for information about it in a geography book. How strange that simply by talking about a thing a person can show that he is not talking about that thing, because one would think that this could be shown only by not talking about it. (p.391)

Dawn and I recently received some Junkmail from Jesus which provided a perfect illustration of the object of that complaint from some scam called Saint Matthew's "Churches". Click to embiggen the following image, and pay special attention to that blue box.


I especially like how salvation is sandwiched between two different ways of asking God for money.

You may also have noticed reference to a "Church Prayer Rug" and a "Prosperity Cross". I don't have images of those scanned, but I assure you they're just as ludicrous as you might be imagining.

So, that's all pretty funny (in response to Climacus, I guess I'm more inclined to laughing than weeping). Then I found this report, courtesy of the good folks at the Trinity Foundation. According to the graph at the bottom of the page, in 1999 Saint Matthew's "Churches" brought in nearly $30 million, and their income increases every year. Who knows how much they're making nowadays.

Every once in a while, I really feel like kicking someone in the head.

Trash a televangelist for Jesus

Here's a story about Ole Anthony and how the Trinity Foundation got started. It includes the tale of how they got a bug up their bum about televangelists.

Another time Ole counted the number of homeless people in America, then compared that to the number of churches, and announced one day, "We don't have a problem! If one homeless person slept in each church, the problem is solved." Especially since most American churches are only used one or two days a week. So Trinity sent speakers out to ask churches to adopt a single homeless person.

That didn't take too well. Most of the local churches just sent all the homeless people to Trinity.

And it was those very homeless who led Trinity to its biggest and most controversial work, the trashing of televangelism in America. The homeless would arrive at Trinity after being kicked out of some place, usually by their families, who were overwhelmed by their constant problems and inability to make money. But in several cases, the homeless person had spent his or her last dollar, not on food, not on drugs, not on gas for a car, but on a "faith pledge" to a televangelist. Many of these television preachers talk about the "hundredfold blessing" you get when you donate money to God, suggesting that God is a kind of spiritual casino who pays 100-to-1 odds when people need Him.

[...]

"It was literally widows and orphans," said Ole. "That's who supports the televangelists. The weakest, most vulnerable people in the world."

Unfathomable are the ways in which that shit ain't right.

Let the fraudsters hit the floor

With any luck, the finances of some of America's richest and worst televangelists will soon be hitting the floor like the bodies at a Benny Hinn spectacle. Well, maybe that's a little too optimistic. But one can hope.

The backstory here is that Ole Anthony and the rest of the Trinity Foundation (the nice folks behind the Wittenburg Door) have spent decades researching the financial practices of these televangelist snakes (and also their religious practices--which, for them, also reduce to financial practices). And the latest news is that Republican (!) Senator Chuck Grassley decided to put this sort of information down on official Senate letterhead and demand some answers to some tricky questions--all leading up to the very big question of whether these "ministries" deserve their tax-exempt status.

(As it is, these organizations are tax-exempt because they are registered as non-profit organizations. But they don't have to report on how they spend their money, because they are "churches". Whose bright idea was this?)

See here for a summary, as well as (in the comments) a first-hand account of what it's like to be victimized by these assholes:

I'm so mad still at [John] Hagee [alas, not one of those who received a letter from Grassley] who fleeced me for over 12 years while I was a single mom with three abused kids, barely getting by. When I think of the times my electricity got turned off because I tithed and gave instead of paying my bills, I could scream. I was told to NOT pay my bills, but to tithe first and believe God for the money for my bills....then when my electricity was turned off I was told I had no faith. I thought God hated me.

OK, so, that's somewhat beside the point. It's unlikely that this sort of practice in particular breaks any tax laws. But it sure does piss me off.

Anyway, other info, plus clips of TV news coverage, available at the Door's Televangelism Scorecard. See Creflo Dollar (his real name) explain how he has only one Rolls Royce, not two. See Kenneth Copeland get asked whether he ever sees any of the prayer requests included in the cash-stuffed envelopes he gets, and then start whining. See Senator Grassley suggest that maybe a non-profit shouldn't be buying marble toilets.