After reviewing recently published Form 990s, Trinity Foundation has reported two of three non-profit organizations affiliated with Bill Johnson’s California megachurch Bethel Redding for possible Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan fraud.

Trinity Foundation reported Bethel Media and Bethel School of Technology, but not Bethel Music, to the Small Business Administration.  Let’s take a look at their loans and Form 990s.

The loan program was authorized by Congress to help small businesses and non-profit organizations retain employees during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, all three organizations report zero employees on page one of their latest Form 990s, but it is possible they use independent contractors.

(Photo: Bethel Media Form 990, page 1, line 5 reports zero employees.)

In 2020, Bethel Media received a PPP loan for retaining 77 jobs and in 2021 received a second loan for retaining 50 jobs. According to ProPublica’s Tracking PPP database, Bethel Media received $496,300 for each year.

Continue reading “Bethel Redding-Related Ministries Reported for Possible PPP Loan Fraud”

(Photo: Pastor Charles Stovall Weems preaching at Celebration Church.)

In 2021, Stovall and Keri Weems, then pastors at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, purchased a home at $855,000 through Weems Group LLC, a limited liability company, and then sold it to their church four months later for $1,286,900, a $431,000 profit!

This financial transaction plays a central role in an investigation conducted by law firm Nelson Mullins on behalf the church. Findings from the investigation were compiled into a report available to church members and the public.

(Photo: Duval County Property Appraiser reporting the home purchase by Weems Group LLC and Celebration Church in 2021.)

According to the report, “The  Church’s  purchase  of  the  Shellcracker property  was  not  disclosed  to  or  approved  by  the  Board.  The  closing  documents  were signed by Weems on behalf of both Weems Group and the Church. The Church financed the  purchase  of  the  property  by  drawing  on  its  line  of  credit  from  its  primary  lender, Wesleyan  Investment  Foundation  (“WIF”).  Weems  executed  a  Mortgage  Modification and  Spreading  Agreement  encumbering  the  Shellcracker  parsonage  and  increasing  the Church’s debt by $1,300,000.”

While Nelson Mullins never described the financial transaction as fraud, the sale to the church is similar to flipped property fraud schemes the FBI began aggressively investigating in the early 2000s during America’s housing bubble.

Continue reading “Pastors Selling Homes to Churches for Large Profits”

(Photo:  Pete Evans, President of Trinity Foundation)

How much is embezzled by “Christian” religious leaders? Researchers at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, which study this problem, produce an annual estimate which is published each year in the January issue of the International Bulletin of Mission Research.

This year’s estimate: $59 billion in ecclesiastical crimes. Meanwhile, $52 billion will be spent on world missions.

Let those numbers sink it. More money is stolen by religious leaders than is spent on world missions.

Is there a way to dramatically reduce this crime? Our non-profit foundation has tried to avoid suggesting any national legislation over the years, but that has to change.

Continue reading “A Word from our Foundation’s President”

(Photo: St Matthews Churches includes inexpensive items such as this tablecloth in mailouts to create a sense of obligation for the letter recipient to donate.)

How a Man You’ve Never Heard of Created the Unholy Grail of Televangelist Fund-Raising Letters and Keeps the Cash Rolling In Over 60 Years Later.

By Mike Renfro and Pete Evans

You’d certainly be forgiven if the name Gene Ewing doesn’t ring a bell. What this name does ring is the cash register. Gene Ewing is the behind-the-scenes J.R. Ewing of TV Preachers and their cash gushers. It’s a show that’s been going on for over six decades—mostly at the expense of the poor, elderly, sick and hurting.

His stock-in-trade for most of his career has been scripture-draped fund-raising appeals, replete with highly personalized pitches and promises for renewed health and prosperity. Predictably, it’s Ewing and his partners that have been the ones prospering. And if IRS records before they “went dark” and re-branded as a church are any indication at all, they’ve been prospering to the tune of millions of dollars annually—all pouring into a lawyer’s P.O. box, overflowing with cash, checks and cynically-abused dreams.

You can google him but you’ll struggle to find a photo of him from this side of the 1960s. Perhaps the only thing more mysterious and elusive than the man is the church from which his appeals emanate. And unlike many of his cohorts in televangelism such as Jim Baker and W.V. Grant, who both spent time in prison, Ewing’s always managed to avoid both the law and the limelight.

James Eugene “Gene” Ewing, Milton Ray McElrath (Ray), and until recently, their now-deceased lawyer J.C. Joyce have been the three main individuals consistently running what is now Saint Matthews Churches under many different names.  How did this organization evolve into the money machine it is today?

Continue reading “James Eugene Ewing, Founder of St. Matthews Churches: the Religious Direct Mail Monster”

A word from our president, Pete Evans, about why people fall for the prosperity gospel.

Desperation is a huge motivator.  When you or someone close to you is dying or suffering, it’s natural to want to help in whatever way we can.  Or, when finances become so strapped that you or a person close to you is in anguish, there is a desire to alleviate the suffering.  So if a televangelist comes on television promising that God wants to heal and financially bless individuals, but God requires a gift first—care of the ministry of course; desperate people begin to grasp at straws and take desperate measures. It becomes a sort of heavenly lottery and plays on people’s natural greed as well.  In desperation, people give to the ministry in order to get their invisible lottery ticket and “expect a miracle”.

The televangelists use a twisted and perverted version of one of Jesus’ parables—the parable of the sower and the seed. First, the true meaning of the parable:  Jesus was talking about the seed of Christ in us—about his life in us and how it can be trampled on, choked out, or—best case—nourished.

Next, the perversion of the parable:  the seed is your money; which, planted in the good ground will be multiplied by God via health, healing, or an exponential increase in wealth based on the amount one gives.  To quote Hitler’s despicable propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” I would add, at least until the spell is broken.  The Goebbels quote is often called “The Big Lie”.

 

Thirty-five years ago, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) faced its biggest public relations scandal. Televangelist Jim Bakker resigned from the PTL Television Network after news media revealed hush money was paid to Jessica Hahn so that she wouldn’t reveal his affair.

Bakker’s local newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, tenaciously investigated the flamboyant preacher, revealing details of his extravagant lifestyle.
In 1989, NRB created the Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission (EFICOM) in response to the Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart scandals.

NRB’s attempt at self-regulation was short-lived. EFICOM was shut down in 1993.

Last week Christian media professionals from around the world gathered at the NRB annual convention in Nashville at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center.

Trinity Foundation reviewed a list of speakers, sponsors and supporting organizations featured at the convention, discovering two non-profits not filing a Form 990 with the IRS.

The Form 990 itemizes revenues, provides a breakdown of total expenses, and reveals salaries of highest paid officers at non-profit organizations. (Churches, synagogues and mosques are exempt from reporting.)

Dave Kubal, one of the conference speakers, serves as president of Intercessors for America. According to the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, Kubal’s organization stopped filing a Form 990 after 2016. Intercessors for America received almost $1 million in donations during the last year it reported to the IRS.

Intercessors for America, is lucky that its tax-exempt status has not been revoked. According to IRS rules, a non-profit should lose its tax-exempt status after not filing a Form 990 for three consecutive years.

The other non-profit failing to file a Form 990 is International Evangelism Outreach. The organization’s president, Eliudi Issangya, participated in NRB’s Great Commission Forum. Because International Evangelism Outreach does not file a Form 990, there is no public reporting of American donations to the Tanzania-based ministry.

If NRB wants its members to be more transparent, it should begin a screening process for convention speakers and participants which checks for publicly available Form 990s or publicly available audited financial statements.

If NRB’s leadership had real discernment, they would be doing everything possible to clean up religious broadcasting. Unfortunately, NRB is unprepared to face the next wave of televangelist scandals.

In fact, there is currently a televangelist under investigation suspected of crimes that would make Bakker’s sins look tame.

After pleading guilty to a massive crime operation that involved wire fraud and bank fraud, Charles Sebesta was ordered last year to pay back the amount stolen from his church: $11,438,213. Sebesta also received 130 month prison sentence.

A Department of Justice press release explained the crimes: “Having wrested operational and financial control of the Church from its elderly members by 2006, [Sebesta] began a 10-year spree in which he treated the Church and its considerable assets as his own personal piggy bank.”

After becoming chairman of the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, of Los Angeles, Sebesta forged check signatures and created a fake company, Sky Blue Environmental, to send payments.

The church refused to excuse the criminal behavior of its chairman and contacted law enforcement. As a result, Sebesta was required to pay restitution. The court ruling mirrored biblical justice which required thieves to pay back their victims. Such justice is often denied when churches and ministries refuse to file charges against pastors and financial secretaries committing financial crimes.

Continue reading “Requiring Restitution for Church Criminals”