Recipients Of The Jesus Rug Warned To Keep Eyes Open
By JOANN KLIMKIEWICZ
Courant Staff Writer
May 9 2006
The envelope comes addressed "To a Friend" and with the promise that
"the letter you write today could change your tomorrow." And it could
soon make its way to a mailbox near you.
Inside
the envelope, said to be from St. Matthew's Churches in Oklahoma, is an
oversized sheet of paper bearing a lavender image of an eyes-closed
Jesus. Identified as a prayer rug, it asks the recipient to kneel on
the paper, meditate on a blessing - and then notice whether Jesus' eyes
appear to have opened. (This seems less a matter of divine intervention
than a skillfully rendered optical illusion.)
Still, the mailing
seems harmless. No blatant pleas for money. It asks only that
recipients return the rugs with their names, addresses and prayer
requests so the church can pass the rug's good fortune on to the next
needy soul.
Not so fast, cautions Ole Anthony, founder of the
Trinity Foundation, a Dallas nonprofit watchdog working to expose
religious scams.
St. Matthew's Churches is led by James Eugene
Ewing, a one-time traveling preacher of the tent-revival variety, says
Anthony, whose organization gained national attention after helping
ABC's "Primetime" expose televangelist Robert Tilton as a fraud.
Anthony says Tilton and Ewing were collaborators.
"We've been
following [Ewing] since '91," he says. That was when the group went by
the name Church by Mail. "They just keep changing their name to keep
ahead of anyone who's looking into them. They're one of the sleaziest.
And one of the longest lasting."
Ewing's nonprofit organization
was the subject of an investigation by the Tulsa World in 2003. The
newspaper called it a "direct-mail empire" that "brings millions of
dollars flowing into a Tulsa post office box." The investigation
detailed Ewing's luxurious lifestyle, his fondness for fancy cars and
tracked him to a Beverly Hills address.
It reported that the
group changed its named shortly after the Internal Revenue Service
denied Church by Mail tax-exempt status in 1992 after concluding its
fundraising was solely for the benefit of Ewing and his partner, Ray
McElrath.
The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance has
been looking into the new group's practices since at least 2000.
Bennett Weiner, head of the alliance, said he's working on an updated
report, corresponding with the church to get new information to
determine if its practices meet bureau standards.
He said the
alliance began reporting on the church in response to public
complaints. Some simply wanted off the mailing lists; others objected
to the letter's contents. And some complained they never received the
financial or spiritual blessing the mailings promised.
Representatives
of St. Matthew's Churches could not be reached for comment. There is no
phone listing for the organization, whose address is a post office box.
A secretary in the office of J.C. Joyce, the Tulsa attorney who has
represented the organization for years, said he was unavailable for
comment.
Anthony says St. Matthew's Churches preys on the
vulnerable, using U.S. Census data to target senior citizens and
low-income people with mailings containing the prayer rug or similarly
"blessed" tokens. They claim the tokens will bring financial, physical
and spiritual blessings. They urge recipients use them privately. And
to create the illusion that recipients are "chosen," they direct them
to different parts of a neighborhood at a time, he says.
Anthony's
Trinity Foundation reports that of the 1 million mailings sent per
month, about 8.6 percent are filled out and returned. And that's when
the flurry of mailings begins and residents get "constantly pounded for
money," says Anthony.
"They know exactly what they're doing.
Their whole claim is, `We're just trying to reach them with the
gospel.' They don't even know what the gospel is. They're just con men
with a collar," says Anthony, whose foundation has ministered to the
poor and homeless since the 1970s. ("We got into this because so many
... were giving their money to these [religious scams], betting on the
heavenly lottery," he says.)
Anthony characterizes these schemes
as "the most vile form of religious pornography, because it preys on
the desperate and the weak and the ill."
Weiner, of the Wise
Giving Alliance, recommends caution with any solicitation. He says to
check out any organization asking for money by contacting a local
Better Business Bureau or visiting the alliance's website,
www.Give.org. If a charity is not listed, a caller can request the
alliance begin a report on one.
In Connecticut, all
organizations seeking charitable donations from the public must
register with the state Department of Consumer Protection, and file
annual reports on its activities. Religious organizations are exempt
from the requirements, however.
Joann Klimkiewicz can be reached at jklimkiewicz@courant.com.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant
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