Monitoring religious fraud for 30+ years.
Wichita news anchor Gloria Balding brings us a report about St Matthews Churches. The Trinity Foundation has been investigating Gene Ewing (“God’s Ghost Writer”) and his mail solicitation business for decades… His “ministry” solicits funds from the poorest of poor.
Brittany Koper, the granddaughter of TBN founder Paul Crouch Sr.,
and former chief financial officer of Trinity Broadcasting, filed a lawsuit Jan. 29 against her former company and its top bosses for allegedly threatening her with a loaded gun when she objected to “unlawful distributions” of $100 million to themselves and others. (Above, the Crouch family in happier times: from left, Jan Crouch, Brittany Koper, Michael Koper and Paul Crouch Sr. The undated photo is courtesy of Brittany Koper)
“The nature of these illegal activities involved the systematic diversion of defendant Trinity Broadcasting’s charitable assets through unlawful distributions to defendant Trinity Broadcasting’s directors through numerous channels. The magnitude of these unlawful and related financial schemes uncovered by or disclosed to plaintiff Brittany Koper is on the order of $100 million,” alleges the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court Central District of California.
“Where did Noah get the money to build that ark? Think about where he got that moolah!”
Corrie Mitchell, writing for FaithStreet.com, gives the Five Most Disturbing Things About a Benny Hinn Miracle Service.
Property records and independent appraisals done for CNN’s religion editor indicate that ten out of 35 U.S. Archbishops live in lavish homes worth more than $1 million. Complete with photos, The Lavish Homes of American Archbishops, by CNN’s Belief Blog Editor, Daniel Burke reveals that some of these homes are shared by a few fellow priests. Nonetheless, some of these are whoppers. The Vanderbilt Appraisal company, hired by CNN, found this particular residence to be worth over $30M–due in part to the prime real estate it sits on in Manhattan.
We definitely can offer some competition from America’s televangelists. Consider TV preacher TD Jakes’ personal crib appraised at over $6.36M and note the Bentley in the driveway–perhaps he should take a cue from the new pope.
Or, consider Kenneth and Gloria Copeland’s Eagle Mountain lakefront “parsonage” which, together with immediate surroundings, is valued at over $6.6M:
We’re guessing that not many if any of the aforementioned archbishops travel around in private jets, drive Bentleys or preach the prosperity gospel. For images of these and other televangelist homes, jets and cars, watch our investigations video.
Photo taken from Kenneth Copeland Ministries blog site [1] and from Catch the Fire, Revival Magazine, “Unity in Diversity”, Left to right—Carol and John Arnott, Rev Brian Stiller, Kenneth Copeland, Pope Francis, Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher, Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, James and Betty Robison, Tony Palmer. A similar photo with the same persons was published by Trunews.com [2]
When Pope Francis sacked the German “Bishop of Bling” Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg last October for spending $43 million of church funds for his residential complex, and denounced the “idolatry of money,” self-indulgence and “insidious worldliness” within the church, we were hopeful.
And in May, when the pope condemned “profiteers” and “climbers” and “people who follow Jesus for money,” calling for a “poor church for the poor,” we applauded.
But now the Pope has met with several televangelists who engage in the same kind of excesses he’s been preaching against, and we wonder why.
Bill Feltner of Pilgrim Radio program “His People” interviewed Ole Anthony about our investigations into religious fraud. The program aired 6/25/2014 at 2:30am and 12:30pm Pacific time at pilgrimradio.com at 9:30pm Pacific time. We will be posting the program here soon.
kenneth copeland airport in winter
NPR reporter John Burnett gives a succinct explanation on “All Things Considered” why nothing has been or will be done about the excessive lifestyles of prosperity preachers.
Using Daystar TV’s financial records obtained by the Trinity Foundation under the Texas Opens Records act, Mr. Burnett was able to piece together an accurate picture of how many hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through their accounts and exactly how little of that is spent on true charity. It’s less than 5% according to NPR analysis in the first of a 2-part series called, “Can a TV Network Be a Church? The IRS Says Yes”.
In the second part, “Onscreen But Out of Sight, TV Preachers Avoid Tax Scrutiny” NPR reporter Burnett gives a “bird’s-eye view” of Kenneth Copeland’s large mansion and the ministry’s airport. He explains why the IRS has stopped investigating any churches or ministries and why they are unlikely to do so in the future.
Ole Anthony (not 27 yr-old photo)
“Having an electric church is like having a rubber doll wife.” “What would God say to the church today?” 27 years ago (April 5th, 1987), Ole Anthony delivered a message to the church… whatever you want to call it, this four minute excerpt of Ole Anthony being interviewed by then Eagle rock station’s DJ, Rich Brian, will amaze…
Dr. Yonggi Cho rejected Budhism in his youth and converted to Christianity. In 1958 he founded what has now become, according to PBS, the worlds largest megachurch in Korea. Spread out across 7 different services, literally hundreds of thousands attend services every Sunday. We are sad to report that Dr. Cho was convicted on February 21st of embezzling over $12 million dollars over the course of many years. As a part of his sentence, he will have to repay close to $5 million of that amount.
Devastated by Dr. Cho’s conviction, Lee Grady couldn’t help but speak out on integrity. In response, he expanded on six different ways to prevent another ministry scandal (excerpted here), “1. Never build a cult of personality. 2. Develop a culture of openness.3. Insist on financial transparency. 4. Don’t build a family dynasty.5. Beware of creating a greed monster. and 6. Never tolerate a spirit of entitlement.”
We couldn’t agree more.
We will miss his quirky style, his constant comments about those evil “heretic hunters” (possibly referring to us), and his colorful dress shirts–well, maybe not the dress shirts. Paul Crouch died this past weekend at the age of 79 after a long battle with congestive heart disease. Religion News Service reporter Adelle Banks provided quite a lot of information about Crouch and the television network, Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), he founded and grew.
Ms. Banks quoted our own Ole Anthony as saying, “Paul Crouch at TBN is the greatest proponent of the oldest heresy in the church — that gain is godliness,” said Ole Anthony, a founder of the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, which has investigated Crouch’s ministries and others for more than 30 years. “All of the heresy connected with that position is what they’re based on and the problem is they’ve spread that all over the world.”