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

(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.”

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Dark Money: Billions of Dollars of Ministry Assets No Longer Reported to IRS

(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.

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Whistleblowers, Know Your Options: Exploring Ways to Expose Corruption in Churches and Ministries

(Photo: Melly95/Pixabay | “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” – Ephesians 5:13)

Note: This article will take about 20 to 25 minutes to read.

In recent years, church and ministry whistleblowers have tried a variety of different approaches to expose corruption. They’ve challenged religious leaders in private meetings, worked with investigative reporters, filed complaints with government agencies, sued churches, appeared on podcasts and created whistleblower websites.

This article lists ten ways whistleblowers can engage in fighting fraud.

First, a Warning

Before going public with accusations, carefully evaluate the evidence. Is the evidence conclusive? If there is not enough evidence to convince most people, it might be best to wait on publicly voicing your concerns. If you make false allegations, even by accident and with good intentions, it will harm your credibility and could result in a defamation lawsuit.

Seek advice from experts: Attorneys can research government statutes and explain how laws apply to your circumstances.

If allegations are of a financial nature, consult with a certified public accountant. There are loopholes in the tax code that allow religious non-profits and churches to operate in a manner that would be illegal for other non-profits. Churches are not required by law to provide financial information to their donors.

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IRS Revokes Tax Exemption of Religious Broadcaster

(Screenshot: Garth Coonce, founder of TCT Ministries, died in 2023. Coonce acquired a beach condo from Dove Communications for $100.)

In a rare disciplinary action, the IRS has revoked the tax exemption of religious cable TV broadcaster Dove Communications, Inc. after ministry leadership engaged in excess benefit transactions and other misconduct.

The IRS announcement was reported in the latest issue of the Internal Revenue Bulletin which also revealed that Center of New Life Philosophy  Church & Education (Akron, Ohio), Praise Place (Kentwood, Michigan), and Live Ministries (Rocklin, California) lost their tax exemptions due to violations of the United States tax code.

Dove Communications is an affiliate organization of TCT Ministries, based in Marion, Illinois, which broadcasts the cable channel TCT.

Normally, the reason for the revocation would be a secret because IRS revocation letters sent to penalized non-profit organizations are subject to government secrecy due to the 1974 Privacy Act. Investigative reporters are unable to obtain IRS revocation letters with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

However, TCT Ministries disclosed in their 2022 and 2023 Form 990s that ministry leadership engaged in excess benefit transactions and litigation exposed some of the ministry’s financial abuses.

In January of 2024, MinistryWatch reported, “TCT Ministries, a nonprofit, faith-based television network, has sued four of its board members for abusing their board positions and violating their fiduciary duties for their own financial benefit.”

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Who Would Jesus Imprison? Ministry Builds Ugandan Church with Jail Cell. Money Raised for Ministry Goes into Black Hole.

(Screenshot: Shannon Hurley giving a video tour of his church building under construction in Uganda.)

In recent years, millions of dollars have been donated to Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries, an American non-profit filing questionable Form 990s with the IRS and building a church in Uganda with a prison cell.

In July 2024, Sufficiency of Scripture Ministries President Shannon Hurley produced a video tour highlighting construction at Community Bible Church of Kubamitwe.

Hurley explained to his viewers, “As you enter our property, this is the front gate. This is actually where security will be. Security will be on the bottom. We actually, through that little window there, we have a little jail cell. So if somebody is drunk, they can sit there. Or if we capture somebody that’s doing something wrong, they can stay there till police come.”

A church jail cell sounds incompatible with the Bible.

When Jesus entered the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus read a biblical prophecy which he would fulfill: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” – Luke 4:18-19 NIV and Isaiah 61:1-2

According to the Ugandan Constitution, “A person arrested, restricted or detained shall be kept in a place authorised by law.”

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Church Gifts Televangelist a Gold-Plated Trump-Edition AR-15: Understanding Gift Tax Reporting Requirements

(Screenshot: YouTube channel TruthBacker)

Recently, Living Word Christian Church in LaCrosse WI, gifted Pastor Mark Barclay a gold-plated AR-15 engraved with President Donald Trump’s words, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The gun given to Barclay may have cost between $1,330 to $1,700, according to the Black Rain Ordnance gun manufacturer website.

When American churches present gifts to pastors for their birthdays, during Pastor Appreciation Month (October) and when they retire, sometimes they are required to report these gifts as compensation.

(Screenshot: U.S. Code Title 26 Section 102)

Small gifts such as snacks and a T-shirt provided occasionally at work are considered de minimis, and not subject to taxation.

Meanwhile, gifts to non-employees are handled differently.

Some of the gifts to televangelists are very extravagant:

  • Paula White gave T.D. Jakes a Bentley convertible.
  • Oral Roberts gave fundraising consultant James Eugene Ewing an aircraft.
  • Creflo Dollar attempted to raise $2 million for Kenneth Copeland to celebrate Copeland’s 40th ministry anniversary.
  • Daystar Television Network’s only independent board member Tom Calendar gifted the network president Joni Lamb $100,000 for honeymoon, which she claims to have reimbursed.

The Danger of Tax Evasion

In 2011, the Senate Finance Committee published a 61-page report identifying financial loopholes exploited by religious organizations. One of the loopholes was pastors receiving “love offerings” rather than a salary so that their compensation was not taxed.

There also appears to be widespread confusion in the church world regarding speaking honorariums. They are often treated as gifts when they are compensation, and the recipient should be given a Form 1099 for tax purposes.

Televangelist Todd Coontz and Gregory L. Clarke, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, both served jail time for tax evasion as a result of treating speaking honorariums as gifts rather than taxable income.

However, the courts are not always consistent. An indictment of the late televangelist Morris Cerullo was dismissed because a prosecutor failed to give the grand jury complete information.

Tax Notes reported, “During the prosecutor’s presentation, the grand jury asked at least three times about how to differentiate between earned income and gifts. Each time the prosecutor answered without mentioning the most critical factor: the donor’s intent.”

Reporting Requirements

For 2025, the gift tax exclusion is $19,000. With a couple exceptions, gifts exceeding this amount are taxable and require the donor to complete the IRS Form 709 and pay the gift tax.

Not subject to taxation are gifts to spouses and gifts to pay for school tuition or medical expenses.

While churches, synagogues and mosques are not required to report gift expenses to the Internal Revenue Service on a Form 990, other religious non-profits such as Christian colleges do include them in the 990 Statement of Expenses Page.

For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, Liberty University provided $341 million in grants and scholarships to its American students.

The IRS website features a Frequently Asked Questions page for gift taxes and the IRS Publication 559 provides more in-depth information about gift taxes for accountants and bookkeepers.

* This article features a correction. It originally incorrectly reported that Living Word Church in Midland, Michigan, gifted Pastor Mark Barclay a gold-plated AR-15. Instead, Living Word Christian Church in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, was responsible for the gun gift.

Searching for Tips: Know of Any Religious Leaders Committing Extortion?

This is an odd request. Trinity Foundation investigators are looking for tips.

Often religious leaders are accused of immoral actions which are not necessarily illegal. It is not a crime to waste millions of dollars on ministry-owned jets or massive parsonages.

However, we are also interested in documenting criminal actions, especially financial fraud and extortion. If a pastor or televangelist convinced you to give based on a false promise of financial blessings which you never received, let us know about it.

If you are aware of a pastor or ministry leader using threats/intimidation to obtain donations, contact us. For example, has a pastor told you that God would punish you if you didn’t give him a donation?

If you know about a megachurch taking over other churches through loan sharking techniques (charging large amounts of interest which could no longer be repaid), blackmail or bribery, please report it.

Whistleblower Form  Email: trinity@trinityfi.org Phone: (214)827-2625)

Investigation: Billionaire Televangelist’s Beach Condo for Sale, Wealthy Foreign Pastors Acquire American Real Estate

(Screenshot: Bishop Edir Macedo preaching from Portugal.)

The world’s wealthiest televangelist, billionaire Edir Macedo of Brazil, has listed his beach condo in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, for sale. After a recent price reduction, Macedo is asking almost $14.6 million for the luxurious residence in the Porsche Design Tower.

Macedo’s neighbors have included Russian oligarchs, soccer player Lionel Messi, Columbian singer Maluma, Mexican actress/singer Thalía and Andrea Romanello Ferdinand, the daughter of Patrick Romanello, whom The New York Times reported was “alleged to be an associate of the Bonanno crime family.”

(Photo: Carl LenderCreative Commons License)

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Exploring Daystar Programming Partners: Guess Who Owns Six Square Miles of Land?

In addition to producing its own original programs such as Joni Table Talk and Ministry Now and broadcasting Christian movies on Saturdays, Daystar Television Network relies on 69 programming partners to fill its weekly broadcast schedule.

We were curious: How many of Daystar’s programming partners provide financial information to donors?

The following spreadsheet reveals which programming partners file an IRS Form 990 which discloses total revenue, total expenses, and compensation of officers. Unlike other non-profits, churches, synagogues and mosques are exempt from the requirement to file a Form 990.

One-third (23) of Daystar’s programming partners provide a Form 990, which was more than we expected.

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Televangelists and Pastor Entrepreneurs, Are You in Compliance? March 21st Deadline to Report Company Ownership to Feds

(Photo: Pixabay)

Update: After publication of this article, the Treasury Department announced it will only require foreign companies to disclose ownership in America and that owners of American companies will not be prosecuted for non-disclosure of beneficial ownership information.

After facing court challenges the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act, has gone into effect, requiring many owners of corporations, limited liability companies and sole proprietors to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to the federal government.

But loopholes in the act have inadvertently made churches the ideal venue for international money laundering.

In prior years, law enforcement would complain about the difficulty of identifying the owners of companies because their names didn’t appear on corporate records.

For some companies, the only contact is a registered agent who doesn’t personally know their client. On other occasions the names of managers of limited liability companies (LLCs) and dummy directors of corporations appear on company registration documents rather than the owner.

This lack of corporate transparency protects terrorists, international money laundering, tax evasion, and drug smuggling.

Lack of Beneficial Ownership Hides Aircraft

When reporters Mark Smith and Tanya Eiserer of Dallas-based ABC affiliate WFAA discovered in 2019 that more than 1,000 aircraft were registered to two P.O. boxes in the small Texas town of Onalaska – which has no airport – they began to ask questions. It was, after all, more aircraft than are registered in either Seattle, San Antonio or New York City.

WFAA reported, “In 2008, a plane crashed into a home in Caracas, Venezuela, killing seven people. The pilot was a twice-convicted drug smuggler. The plane was registered in the United States to Aircraft Guaranty Corp. The company never identified the real owner.”

“There’s more: In 2013, a helicopter also registered to Aircraft Guaranty crashed into a golf course in Mexico.  ‘I was never able to find out the actual person who was responsible for that helicopter accident,’ said attorney Ladd Sanger, who represented the families of three of the five people killed in the crash.”

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