Helping the Fardettes (An Update)

Pete Evans

Katrina in the hospital

 

Larry and Darcy

(Update at bottom of post)
Katrina Fardette, 28, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., has Lupus, and her condition is worsening.
After giving to televangelists for many years, none would help.
Her parents, Larry and Darcy left their home in California to help their daughter, but her medical expenses (and their own physical disabilities) drained their finances. Darcy is plagued with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Larry with severe arthritis, which has prevented both of them from working.
The couple ended up living week to week in a Motel 6.
Because they had sent various televangelists and ministries almost $20,000 over the years, the Fardettes sent requests to 18 different ministries, expecting someone to respond to their plight.
Incredibly, not one responded with any help.
A small Episcopal church in Jacksonville, Fla., is helping them. Trinity Foundation has contributed funds as we’ve been able. But their needs require more than a piecemeal solution.

Why are we involved? The Fardettes reached out to Trinity Foundation after we were mentioned as investigators of religious fraud in comedian John Oliver’s HBO program “Last Week Tonight.” (Their experience has only confirmed what we’ve discovered over the years – televangelists care more about expanding their own lavish lifestyles than the needs of their followers).
We hope this crowdfunding campaign will provide Katrina the real help she needs, lift the Fardettes out of their desperate situation and confirm their trust in God and human compassion.
Update:
Thank you to everyone that donated to the Fardettes. We raised slightly more than $2,000 for them, less than what we had hoped for, but enough to tide them over until they could get established in a new home.

HBO’s John Oliver Mocks Money Hungry TV Preachers

Pete Evans

John Oliver broadcast

John Oliver and his staff created their own church to illustrate the absurdity of IRS enforcement of existing religious non-profit guidelines. As of this writing about 4.4 million people have viewed this blistering satire and critique of Robert Tilton, Mike Murdock, Gloria Copeland, and Creflo Dollar as well as giving honorable mention to TBN, Daystar TV, and Inspiration Ministries (a/k/a INSP, formerly, the Inspirational Network). Like a modern-day Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal, John Oliver calls out the televangelists. Great work John Oliver and your fine crew!

CBS This Morning exposes Creflo Dollar’s self-indulgence… “Almighty Dollar”

Pete Evans

 

Creflo Dollar's Georgia mansion
Creflo Dollar’s Georgia mansion

Thank you CBS This Morning for helping expose Dollar’s madness.  Yesterday, CBS’ morning program, CBS This Morning, ran a piece about Creflo Dollar’s request for his donors to help him buy a $65 million dollar luxury jet. subtitled “Almighty Dollar”.

From CBS’ interview with Ole Anthony: “In Creflo’s church, there is no accountability. He runs it like a fiefdom,” said Anthony, president of the Trinity Foundation in Texas, a church fundraising watchdog group. “The chairman of the board of Texas Instruments or AT&T can have a whole fleet of jets, but they’re not begging for money from people and getting a tax write-off in order for them to establish such a lifestyle,” Anthony added.

CBS This Morning co-hosts Gayle King, Norah O’Donnell, and Charlie Rose each reacted with shock and/or sadness at the contrast between Dollar’s indulgent lifestyle and a supportive church member having to ride the bus to get herself to Dollar’s church.

Atlanta metropolis sees Dollar’s wealth, self-justification

Pete Evans

DollarSelfJustifyingCBS Atlanta–Last night, Atlanta and surrounding communities watched an eyeful about Creflo Dollar’s mansions, jets, luxury cars, and self-vindication.  CBS Atlanta reporter Jeff Chirico interviewed Ole Anthony and used flight data information provided by the Trinity Foundation for the story (here).  Atlanta preacher Creflo Dollar responded to critics, whom he alleged were motivated by the devil, and spoke to his cheering congregation, “if they discover that there’s life on Mars, they’re going to need to hear the gospel I’m going to have to believe God for a billion dollar space shuttle…”

Flight data from Dollar’s private and ministry jets obtained by the Trinity Foundation and given to CBS shows multiple trips to the Bahamas and other Caribbean locations, trips to Las Vegas, trips to numerous  Hawaiian Islands, FIJI, and a number of other locations which seem dubious at best from a ministry standpoint.  Here are some excerpts from Ole’s comments in the story linked above, “It’s a spiritual Las Vegas, a heavenly lottery if you will, and the odds are always in favor of the House and Creflo Dollar is the House.” Ole added, “his role isn’t to make money off of the sheep or to ‘eat the sheep’, … in the first century church the pastor lived as the poorest of the poor, not the richest of the rich.”

Dollar Insanity… Treasures on Earth

Pete Evans

creflo-dollar-airplane

Way back in 2005, Creflo Dollar’s ‘blab-it-grab-it’ mentor, Kenneth Copeland, convinced quite a few donors to contribute to his ministry’s purchase of the world’s then-fastest private jet, the Cessna Citation 750 a/k/a the “Citation X” for only a cool $20 million—which Copeland uses regularly to travel to his Steamboat Springs resort home.

Now the ‘name-it-claim-it’ doctrine has struck again!  The aptly named Dollar is ‘believing’ for a whopping $65M to buy one of the now-world’s fastest, longest range, most luxurious private jets, the Gulfstream G650—if only 200,000 donors will give his ministry $300 each!??  Check out Christian Post reporter, Leonardo Blair’s article …

It worked for Copeland, “Only for you, Lord Jesus” (check out Copeland’s prayer dedication of the jet here)… so what the heaven, why not?

Dollar narrowly escaped a Senate subpoena along with five other jet-flying, luxury-car driving, mansion-dwelling, televangelists when our economy tanked in 2008 and again in 2011  when Senator Grassley issued his final report on religious non-profit fraud.  The Senate report about Dollar, based on information provided by the Trinity Foundation, details his numerous properties, mansions, jets, etc.

Check out what African American News Site “The Root” reporter Kirsten West Savali has to say about Dollar’s new “project”.

Dear IRS, please take notes for when you start investigating churches and religious non-profits again, if ever…

Lawsuit charges TBN’s Crouches with gun threat, massive fraud

Pete Evans

crouches_wedding

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.

Read more here.

Compare Catholic Archbishops’ Homes With Televangelist Mansions…

Pete Evans

NY archbishop Manhattan mansionProperty 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.

Pope Poses With Wealthy Televangelists

Pete Evans

Copeland_and_Pontiff_photo_2014
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.

Continue reading “Pope Poses With Wealthy Televangelists”