(Screenshot: Taylor associate, so-called “Prophetess” Kathleen Woods, preaching a sermon on September 21, 2025.)

Following the arrest of televangelist David E. Taylor and ministry executive Michelle Brannon for forced labor and money laundering, members of Taylor’s Kingdom of God Global Church (KGGC) have rallied to Taylor’s defense.

Recently, an informant contacted Trinity Foundation, revealing that members of Taylor’s church have continued their fundraising efforts by texting and calling previous church donors.

On September 16, 2025, the informant received a text message from Pastor Adam soliciting donations. The following day Pastor Kia called the informant to request a donation.

Fox 13 in Tampa has also reported on the recent solicitation phone calls. A journalist listened to a voice mail in which the caller claimed to have a message from David E. Taylor: “He really wanted us to really encourage you, as well as to pray with you.”

According to the federal indictment, Taylor operated call centers in four states (Florida, Michigan, Missouri, and Texas) with unpaid call center workers.

The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) reports that one of the common characteristics of cults is, “The group is preoccupied with making money.”

Continue reading “Following Televangelist David E. Taylor’s Arrest, Cultic Church Continues Telemarketing for Donations, Holds Services”

(Trinity Foundation President Pete Evans reviewing documents obtained from dumpster diving in 1996.)

Inspired by the FBI’s Vault, a collection of more than 6,000 government documents, Trinity Foundation has created the File Vault, a document library, to expose the techniques that televangelists use to defraud their donors, to avoid financial transparency, and to avoid legal accountability.

We want donors to see with their own eyes how the scams work by publishing documents of historical importance. In 1987, televangelist Oral Roberts claimed that God commanded him to raise $8 million or God would take his life. Before making the announcement on television, Roberts sent a fundraising solicitation letter to his large mailing list.

Mailing lists are one of the biggest fundraising tools of religious broadcasters. Five of Oral Roberts’ 1987 fundraising letters are published in the File Vault including the letter in which Roberts announced the $8 million threat from God, and the countdowns to his death IF sufficient funds weren’t raised.

Continue reading “File Vault Exposes Tricks of Televangelists and Some Megachurches”

(Photo: Pixabay/Squarefrog)

On May 10th, Gateway Church in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, obtained a protective order to keep certain information secret by invoking the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

Gateway Church is facing a class action suit filed by former donors seeking a return of their donations based on allegations the church leadership lied about how much money it was giving to missions.

According to the Gateway Church protective order, “‘Confidential Information’ shall include, but shall not be limited to, information that concerns or relates to (1) sales, marketing, manufacturing, or research and development; (2) financial performance; (3) manufacturing or other costs of doing business; (4) licenses or other confidential agreements; (5) technical details of products or methods of doing business and/or marketing; and/or (6) personally identifiable information.”

Pete Evans, President of Trinity, says, “It’s pure insanity! Previous court cases have invalidated church trade secrets.”

In 1986, while deciding a case involving the Church of Scientology, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that religious teachings weren’t subject to laws protecting trade secrets, citing California trade secrets legislation.

In the ruling, Judge Harry Pregerson explained, “We hold that the California courts would conclude that sacred Scriptures do not meet the definition of a trade secret under California law.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

Continue reading “Gateway Church Invokes the Defend Trade Secrets Act to Hide Information from Public”

(Screenshot: Right to left, documentary filmmaker Nathan Apffel, Trinity Foundation president Pete Evans and Trinity Foundation staff investigator Barry Bowen discuss Samaritan’s Purse’s Alaskan operations in Episode Two.)

Trinity Foundation collaborated with filmmaker Nathan Apffel on a seven-part documentary series called The Religion Business, which was released this week.

The wide-ranging documentary focuses on religious fraud and offers a withering examination of the failures of megachurch/ prosperity gospel ministries with contributions from scholars, legal experts and journalists.

The series is available for purchase on the film’s website before reaching Amazon, Apple TV and Roku streaming platforms in two weeks.

Filmmaker Nathan Apffel grew up attending a non-denominational church, was part of the church group, and in his adulthood began to seriously question how and why churches operate the way they do: “I need to ask the toughest questions of my own faith. You might ask, ‘Why?’ Because I hold my faith institution to the highest standards and judgment begins with the Church. All I can say for the moment is good intentions can have devastating consequences. The wolves will feed, the saints will sacrifice, and rivers of endless money will flow.”

Continue reading “Documentary Series “The Religion Business” Exposes Corruption in Megachurches and Ministries”

(Photo: Sammy-Sander/Pixabay)

Trinity Foundation has identified more than 60 religious non-profit organizations with assets totaling almost $1.8 billion that have stopped filing Form 990 information returns with the IRS.

990s disclose program services expenses and other important financial information, helping informed donors evaluate the effectiveness of non-profit organizations.

Program services are determined by subtracting fundraising and management expenses from total expenses to derive the amount spent on the non-profit organization’s mission.

When Charity Navigator rates non-profit organizations, it deducts points for charities that spend less than 70 percent on their mission.

As an example, in 2023 Hal Lindsey Website Ministries program services expenses reached only 55.96 percent, and as a result they received 7 points out of 25 from Charity Navigator. That year Hal Lindsey’s wife Jo Lynn Lindsey received $1,238,924 in compensation which was almost a third of the ministry’s spending and more than half the ministry’s revenue. The ministry had $23 million in assets at the end of 2023, including more than $3 million in cash.

Following Hal Lindsey’s 2024 death, Trinity Foundation reported, “From 2013 to 2023, Hal and his wife JoLynne Lindsey received $18.5 million of compensation from Hal Lindsey Website Ministries. During those eleven years, the ministry spent only $1,105,360 in charitable assistance to groups and individuals.”

However, American churches and related organizations classified as integrated auxiliaries are not required by law to disclose program services expenses or billions of dollars of assets to their donors or to the IRS.

Therefore, if Hal Lindsey Website Ministries was a church and didn’t file 990s, donors would have no way of knowing about the massive accumulation of wealth from ministry donations.

Continue reading “Dark Money: Billions of Dollars of Ministry Assets No Longer Reported to IRS”