Category: Filthy lucre

Santa Ain’t Coming.

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Why should a fool have money in his hand to buy wisdom when he has no sense? (Proverbs 17:16)

Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.  (Isaiah 30:10)

I am a rather plump older man with a large, flowing beard that is pure white. In fact, I get many requests to put on my red suit and portray Santa during holiday season. Which I accept, but only for free at nursing homes and for Special Ed kids. Invariably, starting this time of year, random kids gin up the courage to ask this stranger if I am Santa. Of course I play along, avoiding any promises about the presents they ask me for. For a kid, asking Santa is like offering a prayer. Because Santa is omnipresent like God – everyone knows he’s there, but no one’s ever actually seen him.

Large swaths of evangelism key in on that innate trust in other-worldly blessing.  Prosperity gospel pyramid scammers like Kenneth Copeland tell their children of God to ask for affluence (like he has), and God will give it to them. (But only if you first give bountifully to Copeland ). But even after delivering truckloads of Seed-Money, God doesn’t come through with a Learjet or hand them the keys to a spreading mansion. And Santa ain’t coming.

One Christmas, I was desperate for a BB gun. (Of course, I didn’t get one). But I still believed in Santa. It wasn’t his fault; maybe I didn’t believe hard enough. After trying my best to be a good boy, next year I knew he would come through for me. Funny, how so many adults still place their hopes in a God that looks more like Santa. Maybe, with enough faith – and send enough checks – they’ll soon hit their heavenly lucky numbers. But Santa ain’t coming.

Fabulist Word-Faith preachers promise big miracles for desperate believers. When the Heavenly Amazon doesn’t deliver, posing as God’s earthly surrogates, they plead that no person can know the mind of a god whose intentions and decisions emanate from a metaphysical realm. Their trade is in transcendence. After all, these are businesses that deal exclusively in the divine, not the natural world. Santa doesn’t sell toys; he’s selling dreams. And just like with Santa, you can’t sue God when you don’t get stuff from him. If parishioners miss out on God’s financial largesse, it’s their own fault because of their lack of faith. Any questioning is viewed as a spiritual attack of the Devil. And Santa ain’t coming.

Peter Popov vowed, “I can see God leading people into new homes, new automobiles!” Never mind that Popoff is a debunked faith healer, even today he has a popular nation-wide “ministry”. He brings a “feel good” message that resonates with thousands seeking the Christian self-improvement and emotional therapy he sells – regardless whether he was an enormous fraud. He nevertheless reflects who people want to hear, offering the good life.  But Santa definitely ain’t coming here.

Convicted felon, Jim Bakker, likewise has successfully resurrected his God-business.  What got him into prison was a Ponzi-scheme selling condominium time-shares at his Heritage USA property that bilked hundreds of his – mostly elderly – followers out of their life savings.  Today, it is an ugly, abandoned ruin that resembles eastern Ukraine. Santa never came.

Here’s Bakker’s problem: when these preachers move from commercialized transcendence to dealing in “here-on-earth” goods. You know, like ones involving legally enforceable contracts. Like the “Holy Ground Tiny Houses” manufacturer featured on social media, who promised to build 250 homes tiny homes, never delivered, and then declared bankruptcy.  “He came across as a godly person”, one empty-handed buyer remarked. “It was a Christian organization,” another said. “That’s the only reason I went with it.” NBC reports that, among other things, he “spent five years in prison for bilking more than $470,000 from investors”. Bernard Ebbers, former chairman of bankrupt WorldCom was sentenced to 25-year for cooking the books in a securities fraud which drained billions of dollars from retirement accounts. But Ebbers had the balls to tell his Baptist congregation, “more than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not be jeopardized.”[i]  They’re full of apologies, but Santa ain’t coming here, either.

Like with my BB gun, people are often disappointed when what they wished for doesn’t materialize. Even when a big name preacher-man – or a smooth talking evangelical layman – promises for sure it’s God’s will. The moral here is not necessarily to avoid evangelical marketiers (although probably a wise decision). It’s about not being a “mark” yourself. Especially from trusting others on instinct just because they are Christians. Otherwise, you’ll be singing “I’m gettin’ nuttin for Christmas”.

[i] Jeter, Lynne W. Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal at WorldCom. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2004,  p. 188.

Behold, A Man In Whom Is No Guile.

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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matt. 3:2

You’d have to live under a rock to miss the contenders for Georgia senator. The incumbent Democrat, Rev. Raphael Warnock is pitted against Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker. It’s that season when the airwaves are rotten with campaign ads, and here in Georgia it’s no exception. Walker has made it a toxic race where his are primarily attack ads – very few concentrate on his own accomplishments.

That should not come as a surprise, given Walker has no political experience. More to the point, however, is that there is little virtuous to say about him. Other than he was a popular football star, if that counts. On the football field, he was a superhero. On his private playing field, by published accounts, he was a violent serial philanderer, domestic abuser, and deadbeat dad. Asked if he has ever spoken to any of the mothers of his children, his answer was “why do I need to?” Oh, I forgot to mention he professes to be a staunch “family values” Bible-believing Christian.

And Walker is a habitual liar. “He’s lied so much that we don’t know what’s true”, his own campaign staff admitted. A fictitiously-inflated business record, outright fabrications about being an FBI agent, claims that he graduated from college in the top 1% of his class – when he never obtained a degree. You know, just mere trifles anyone might not remember about their past. Oh, and that he failed to mention he pointed a gun to his former wife’s head and threatened to kill her. Or, that he kept secret – even to his own campaign –three undisclosed children born out of wedlock with various women on the side. There might have been more – but he reportedly paid another girlfriend (or more?) to have an abortion. Walker claimed he had no idea who this woman could be, a denial which was undercut by further reporting that she also had a child with him.

One might suppose all that would put the kibosh on pro-lifers’ support. But predictably, “Family Values” evangelicals merely doubled down.  “Walker’s Christian Fans Unfazed By Abortion Revelations”, a Politico article announces. This follows on a “prayer warriors for Herschel” campaign stop at First Baptist of Atlanta, where the preacher invoked God’s blessing for him to win. “So, we thank you that we can support our fellow conqueror, our brother, our friend, the one that we are praying for today.”.

In fact, the revelations of his private life spurred a vote of confidence by record-setting influx of donations, as most evangelicals dismissed the allegations as October surprise hit-jobs. Including Walker himself, who swore he didn’t do any of it. “They want you to confess to something you have no clue about.” And yet, without confessing these as these hidden sins and repenting, he pronounced himself forgiven “by the grace of God.” It’s somewhat akin to the story in Genesis 18 where Sarah lied and said, “I did not laugh.” “Yes, you did laugh”, the divine visitor replied. You put on a show for other people, cleverly thinking “no one’s gonna know.” But God knows. It nevertheless doesn’t matter to Walker. He pulls out some pages from O.J. Simpson’s book, If I Did It, to say, “And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it, but I know nothing about that.” He then deflects to that old saw that “I’ve been born again”, so I have protection against everything.

“The left will do whatever they can to win this seat,” Walker said. “And I told you when I got in this race I’m gonna win this seat.” Funny how projection works. “I always hoped the influence was such that whether we were out in public or on the field,” long-time Dallas Cowboys coach and evangelical Christian Tom Landry once said.” We conducted ourselves in such a way to show Christian traits.”  Landry never allowed winning override his personal dignity and Christian virtue.  Sadly, our current world is bereft of men and women of similar honor. Who are hailed are those with dubious character, those utterly unqualified as leaders, or otherwise psychologically and spiritually impaired.

You might think this is a hit piece on Herschel Walker. He’s merely a bit player in the ongoing Christian Nationalist wet dream. And with a career of severe head injuries, is an ill man to be pitied and cared for. The real villains in this story are the evangelical leaders/grifters unable to accept the Truth and who foist him up as a Jesus-level hero. You know, those who condemn the sins of those on the “opposing” team. And yet turn a hypocritical eye away from their own. I recall Jesus saying many things against people for whom nothing matters more than raw power.

Frankly, I’m voting for Raphael Warnock on his record and Christian ethic.  If power-hungry evangelicals are willing to overlook their own candidate’s  total lack of a personal moral code for the sake of controlling the Senate, shame on them. They may win this election, because he’d be elected by Christians regardless of what Jesus said. But they are stone-cold losers. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Too Big To Fail

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“I think everyone should be upset about this and, again, Joe Biden is off the rails,” spouted Christian spite-witch Marjorie Taylor Greene. Biden should be impeached after the decision to forgive student loans, she huffed. Her outrage reflects the attitude of many evangelicals: “It seems outrageous to me that any President has the power or authority to cancel legal contracts with the stroke of a pen,” a representative commenter replied to a Christian Post article.

In contrast, evangelicals didn’t complain about the CARES Act PPP, the SBA-guaranteed small business loan program.. In fact, some 50% of churches with more than 200 members applied for a “loan”, with “evangelical leaders tied to President Donald Trump and megachurches tied to scandals pulling in some of the largest payouts”. COVID-19 was a financial bonanza for evangelicals. And they all knew it, replete with secret phone calls from the White House, being “walked through how to obtain emergency funding from the government. Participants in the calls prayed together and thanked officials for ‘blessing’ them with the opportunity to receive millions in taxpayer dollars, even without being tax-exempt or meeting requirements necessary for non-religious organizations.”

Joyce Meyer Ministries, was approved for a $5 million to $10 million loan; Robert Jeffress’ First Baptist Dallas, a loan between $2 million and $5 million; Willow Creek church, between $5 million and $10 million. Despite the intent of PPP to save jobs, the church decided instead to keep the money and cut 92 staff positions. James Dobson’s Family Institute was forgiven $668,549. Mike Bickel of IHOP got $2.5 million. The Crouch dynasty Trinity Broadcasting helped itself to $3.3 million. The American Family Association, a designated hate group, managed to pull $2 million. Steve Furtick wangled $3.6 million, even though his church ended 2019 with a cash surplus of $26 million. Jimmy Swaggart got $2.6 million. Even convicted felon Jim Bakker got into the act, receiving some $400K. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s all exposed – some 400 evangelical ministries and churches – and in the open on the Trinity Foundation website. What happens afterwards – what they do with the money – is locked behind IRS rules protecting churches from transparency in some very opaque finances.

Funny how all these good Christian folks, greedily sucking at the government tit, had no second thought about helping themselves to hard-earned public taxpayer money. And many of them ran some very impressive balance sheets. Along with stashed personal wealth galore. Like the late multi-millionaire and anti-vaccine televangelist Marcus Lamb’s Daystar Network, which took $3.9-million, and turned it around to buy him a multimillion corporate jet. It took an outcry generated by an investigative journalist for Lamb to cough the PPP funds back up. Not like they suffered to meet payroll like struggling mom-and-pop small businesses. Or, the black-owned businesses, which received a paltry 1.9% of loans.  The design was politically maneuvered as a set-up to reward loyal Trump soldiers for their godly obesisance.

And so we return to Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose own business had loans worth $183,504 forgiven. “At the stroke of the pen”, her government indebtedness was expunged. No hypocrisy there, nosiree bob. And these are shofar-blowing zealots for the Lord who adore the Old Testament, reveling in God’s command to murder all the gays.  Yet none of these ram’s horn blowing capitalists ever mention the Israelite Year of Jubilee, which came every 50th year, being a year full of releasing people from their debts, releasing all slaves, and returning property to who owned it (Leviticus 25:1-13).

The hypocrisy is palpable. It should outrage any American taxpayer. Especially a Christian, who disagrees with financially supporting a church or ministry “too big to fail” he/she otherwise shuns as heretical or sham. Meanwhile, thousands of former college students are struggling through an uneasy job market, inflation, and tuition loan repayments. One only needs point to the bait-and-switch Trump University, where “the billionaire had made enough money for himself. Now, he would put his famous brain to work for the little guy“. God cares for the little guy. For glutinous Trump and Taylor Greene, the little guy just gets in the way of the trough. Jesus instead says the little guy is too small to fail my love.

Let’s blow a shofar for student loan forgiveness! 

Saying The Silent Part Out Loud

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We are constantly reminded of the holiness of televangelists – by themselves. Like Kenneth Copeland, whose spiritual purity would be sullied if he took a commercial flight in “a long tube with a bunch of demons”.  Whenever I board a plane and head back to the cheap seats, all I see is a bunch of entitled white people in first class – just the demographic Copeland would feel comfortable with. But because this man of God is creeped out to be around normal (lesser) humans, he needs his own private business jet – together with a hangar full of holy spare airplanes.  And how about the divine extortion scheme run by Paula Cain, where she informed her members to sign over their January paychecks to her. Or bad things would happen to them.

“The nondenominational megachurch has made it easier for charlatans, or those who simply seek autonomy, to shelter themselves from accountability”, according to Ministry Watch. Nobody has been watching these scam-vangelists for so long that they have convinced themselves of their invincibility. And so they grow bolder in explaining how it really works.

“I’m not worth your McDonald’s money? I’m not worth your Red Lobster money?” A pastor was haranguing his “broke” congregation because they did not buy him the luxury watch he wanted. “You know I asked for one last year. And here it is all the way in August and I still ain’t got it”, he scolded.  At least he is a truth-teller in admitting that the prosperity church is nothing more than a counting house. The greed no longer hides behind Jesus’ robes.

Likewise, the Christian Extremist Right feels secure enough now to show their cards. It’s been alluded to, hinted at, or implied – but finally now, they confirm it. According to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, “we were a nation founded upon, not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution.”  Now they have made the jump to decree that the words of the Constitution are “God breathed” – dictated word-for-word in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe, free from error and infallible in all respects. The Holy Spirit controlled the anointed Founding Fathers, just like with the verbally, plenary inspired Bible. Odd then, that the Constitution sounds more like a product of Freemasonry that nowhere mentions the word “God”. Funny, if it is inerrant, as Scripture supposedly was, I don’t recall the Bible having to be amended 27 times. Truth is incontrovertible; it doesn’t evolve. Nevertheless, our Constitution has been now officially decreed a further Word of God.

Holy War must be waged by a divinely-anointed Leader. While the Constitution makes provision for a President, it says nothing about his (her) divinity. Yet Right-wing pastor/MAGA cultist Shane Vaughn declares that “Donald Trump carries the prophetic seal of the calling of God: Donald Trump is the messiah of America.” Vaughn is no outlier; he reflects core covenants of the Christian Right. For many, Trump is the second coming of God. Jesus our Savior gave his life for America, and Trump our Chosen One – the new man of sorrows – sacrifices his own every day for us. A billboard in Georgia proclaimed For Unto Us A Son Is Given  , taking the text from Isaiah 9:6 and applying it to the heaven-sent Trump in bold letters. We no longer have to read between the lines – they are being open and honest about an autocratic Christian States of Amerika.

I occasionally have this nightmare that the Christianity practiced around me is normal while I am the dystopian one. God blesses the greedy; God loves a holy hunger for worldly power and domination. Evangelicals are finally saying the silent part out loud. The truth is out, but it doesn’t look like the Truth I know.  That Truth left the building some time ago.

Un-Presidented

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No one could have missed this week’s lead story. A typical headline reads: FBI’s unprecedented search of Trump’s home stirs Republican outrage. It didn’t take long for the evangelical crowd to get in on the act. Conservative Christian leaders denounced the search as political persecution. Among the first to jump in was Franklin Graham. Graham’s fiefdoms – BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse – do worthy evangelical-ly works. Personally, he is an ass.

“I have no idea what was in former President Trump’s safe” he began, “but if the government thought there was something there that belonged to them, they certainly could have asked for it.”  Well, the government had. Several times. Franklin, why did he remove classified documents from the White House in the first place?  There also was a subpoena that went ignored. After negotiating with Trump, they eventually were given a cache, but not the lot. Still refusing to give the stuff back, Trump kept these under padlock. Franklin, why didn’t he hand them all over months earlier?

If Franklin could have kept from wetting his pants to get in front of the cameras, he might have learned that some of the classified documents Trump kept in his basement pertained to nuclear weapons. Secrets only shared among a very select few, and under highly controlled conditions. The search also focused on potential violations of the Espionage Act.

Trump has been egregiously unfit in handling state secrets. Signals intelligence – the most closely guarded secrets – including intelligence-gathering on Iran, was routinely mishandled by Trump. In 2017, the CIA had to extract its highest-level agent within the Russian government when Trump blew his cover while bragging to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. And then, the time he boasted to reporter Bob Woodward about a nuclear weapon “Putin and Xi have never heard about before.” Loose Lips Sink Ships, a WW II security maxim went. And Trump’s lips are some of the loosest. One journalist observed, “I never thought there was anything left that Trump could do that could shock me. But THIS? He took nuclear weapons and signals intel documents to his goddamn golf resort?”

Like a common Al Capone, Trump invoked the 5th amendment some 440 times relating to his dodgy business practices in New York. This is the same man who once mused, “if you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” “I don’t think the President is sitting there behind the desk trying to make up lies,” Franklin Graham once said of him. Meanwhile, a criminal fraud and tax evasion prosecution in NY is finally proceeding against the Trump Organization. Trump is on the cusp of making his status of organized crime gangster official. Trump once bragged he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. Ever-adoring Franklin included among them.

Also in his comments, Graham – the dual-hatted/double-dipping religious magnate –expressed concern over news that the IRS plans to increase by 87,000 new personnel. You know, the agency that has utterly failed to enforce U.S. tax code provisions known as the Johnson Amendment, which prohibit churches from politicking on behalf of a candidate for public office. Christian organizations and politicians would love to see that disappear, opening the floodgates of “dark money”. And it just so happens that BGEA has received IRS designation as a §501(c)(3) “association of churches.” It draws a convenient veil of opacity over the organization’s finances, including disclosure of executive compensation.

Perhaps a concern about intensified tax scrutiny is his non-profit, Samaritan’s Purse – which finished 2021 with over $1.2 billion in net assets. One expert commented it generates “a profit margin that rivals the best companies.”  Funny, I thought it was a non-profit organization!  Senator Chuck Grassley once tried to shine a little daylight on self-dealing by tax-exempt televangelists, but it fizzled amidst protests of religious persecution. He learned government touches the third rail when messing with religious finances.  And assuming Trump is in the White House instead of jail in 2 years, any financial shenanigans by Christian organizations will never see the light of day.

If I summarize the above, is that Donald Trump and Franklin Graham need each other. They both have things to keep hidden.

God’s As$hole

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No. I’m not referring to G-d, who is ineffable and utterly holy, bless His holy name. We humans are created in his image. But God is Creator, not a created being but spirit. And God doesn’t possess an anus, any more than He has other human anatomy, like a belly button.

In his controversial book, Naked Lunch, 60’s beat author William Burroughs told a story about a man’s asshole taking over speaking for him. It talked constantly, day and night in a “sound you could smell”. The man got fed up, futilely telling his ass to shut up. “It is you who will shut up in the end, not me”, the anus responded. “Because we don’t need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat and shit”.  The brain could no longer give orders anymore, and eventually died. I make the connection; the analogy is apt for today’s evangelicalism. Lots of celebrity evangelical “leaders” talking out their ass. And the body is dying.

The Apostle Paul applies a “body” metaphor to the church in 1 Cor. 12, noting that “the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty”.  Except today, “the decay from the top of the evangelical pyramid has left a stench so thick it’s hard to take American Christians seriously.” The Best And Brightest Voices of Evangelicalism™ are God’s as$hole, commandeering the entire body. It’s a target-rich environment. My Gosh, there such an engorged rectum in the body of American evangelicalism, its hard to mention only but a few.

Like the late Bernhard Ebbers,  CEO of WorldCom, who served 12 years of a 25-year prison sentence following a $11 billion “accounting discrepancy”, which was actually widespread fraud perpetrated by  dodgy accounting methods. It was the largest corporate fraud case in American history. Some 20,000 employees lost their jobs and shareholders lost about $180bn. Ebbers reportedly had told members of his Baptist congregation, “more than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not be jeopardized”. The congregation gave the unrepentant Christian a standing ovation. WTF?

Another example: Nebraska State Sen. Mike Groene. He seems nice. The senator is a dedicated evangelical churchman. Meanwhile, his laptop was discovered with some 50 clandestine photos he took of a young female staffer. You know, innocent close-ups of her body parts, to which he took the time to edit and add titles. One was labeled “legs.” Another was labeled “rear tight.”  Asshole is as asshole does.

When asked, “do you think you did anything wrong?”, Groene replied, “I don’t believe so. I apologized. I did not apologize because I thought I did something wrong. I just apologized, because in their view, I had offended them.” Groene apparently escaped criminal prosecution by resigning his legislative office. He then went full-on persecution mode.  ‘I was like Jesus Christ’.  WTF? His wishes for the real victim: “he hopes [she] loses her job in the Legislature”.  

And finally, another Toxic Christian, Alex Jones. “He is a God-fearing Christian…and right now he needs our support,” said fellow professing Christian, Roger Stone. Jones, who comes from a Christian fundamentalist background, runs the wacked-out hate network InfoWars – what he terms a “Christian ‘self-help’ platform”. His perpetuation of lies that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax wound up– at least for now – in a $4.1 million judgment to the parents of a shooting victim. He was blind-sided in court, after swearing he had no pertinent emails – not even using email. Unknown to him, his attorneys goofed by forwarding voluminous phone records to the plaintiffs, exposing his perjury. Meanwhile, Jones filed bankruptcy against his own company, having devised a secured debt against it by another company under his control. Many legal experts see it as a veiled attempt to seal off his assets.

“The sound you could smell”.  I could go on and on about asshole Christians. But I couldn’t stand the stench.

Evangelical Sin, Not So Private and Personal.

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You drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes. You take away my blessing from their children forever. – Micah 2:9

“The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.

Dave Ramsey is a so-called Christian financial planner, who mixes in a few Bible verses with his garden variety advice. Thousands have paid to attend his seminars, where he presides like a fundamentalist preacher, folksy delivery and self-assured scolding included. It’s made him a multi-millionaire many times over. His empire includes Ramsey Solutions, his signature for-profit company – featured as a“2020 Best Workplaces” – plus various investment spin-offs and 501(c) (3) non-profits. 

What is less well-known is that Ramsey Solutions also functions as church. In order to be hired, applicants undergo an extensive process – including a spousal interview. The employees attend a mandatory chapel/pep talk each week. Their work day is scrutinized and their private lives snooped upon to see if they are truly living righteously 24/7. Some allege it leads to a dictatorial culture of suspicion and gossip. Discovered secret sinners get shown the door. Dave can run his company any way he wants, as he often reminds the entire world. I don’t care about his spiritual rule over employees; his business culture is not the point of this post.

Trending lately have been comments he made on his radio show, that if his tenants are displaced because he raised the rent to meet market price, it does not make him a bad Christian. “I did not displace the person out of that house if they can no longer afford it. The marketplace did. The economy did… I didn’t cause any of that,” he challenged.

Who caused that, the renter? No, the renter is a victim. The landlord is a victim. We’re all victims. Ramsey points the accusing finger at a marketplace that demands it. This admission is a significant departure from evangelical insistence on individual sin as the cause of all evil.

For the cold-heartedness of his advice, Ramsey got a mild spanking from Christian Post. Another critic tweeted, “He benefits from the unjust weights and measures that cause housing prices and rent go up faster than wages. He wouldn’t change that if he could, because he values his wealth over his soul.”

Wealth has an amazing power to deceive us. In his Powers Trilogy, theologian Walter Wink emphasized that both individually and collectively, we are vulnerable and exploitable by structural evils – the whole Kosmos that lies in the power of the Evil One. The domination systems, to which we give imperceiving obeisance, make up our culture and society. Individualistic evangelical theology that only recognizes sin only in terms of personal behaviour is inadequate to explain how our souls are manipulated by the faceless, supernatural power structures (Ephesians 6:12) that surround us.

Thus, as a godly landlord, I can’t be personally blamed for a universally accepted economic system which compels me to pursue my own interests, even if it puts people out on the street. In fact, no single individual is guilty. We are all guilty of individual responsibility for corporate sin. As Jürgen Moltmann observed, “anyone who exists in these structures becomes sin’s accomplice, even if he wants only what is good.”[i] The domination system of mammon is participatory; no one is excluded. It entraps even “good” people into valuing money more than people.  Particularly those having the power to impact the lives of others because of their authority or position.  Ramsey’s comment reflects our complicity in the mammon system such that we cannot recognize our idolatry for what it is. Jesus calls us to a domination-free blessed community where, contrary to Cain’s impertinent reply, we together are our brother’s keeper.

[i] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, pp. 139-40.

You see if you shoot pool with some employee here, you can come and borrow money. – Old Man Potter, “It’s A Wonderful Life”

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In 2020, the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act established the Paycheck Protection Program, creating a $350 billion kitty of forgivable loans for small businesses. The intent was pandemic relief for recipients to keep workers on the payroll and stay open in the near-term. The massive bailout program was rushed out, and hidden in a veil of secrecy, with the Treasury Department declining to disclose how it spent the funds or who the PPP recipients were. Eventually, the recipients were revealed – but only vague dollar ranges instead of specific awards were published. For example, records show that a family-owned shipping business related to McConnell’s wife, Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, received a loan somewhere between $350,000 and $1 million. Chao disavowed any connection to the business or knowledge of the loan, although the New York Times reported that in the past, she had repeatedly used her official position to bolster the business. Their net worth is estimated between $25 and $35 million dollars. Meanwhile, the slipshod administration of the loan program opened the door to massive fraud, waste and abuse, with the Government Accounting Office declaring “the limited safeguards and lack of timely and complete guidance and oversight planning have increased the likelihood that borrowers may misuse or improperly receive loan proceeds.”. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner received million$, along with many in their orbit – even a golfing buddy.

Other friends of Trump made out like bandits – and evangelicals were especially keen on cashing in on free government money to the tune of $17.3 million. Joel Osteen’s megachurch received a $4.4 million check. Members of the President’s evangelical advisory board were exceptionally well-rewarded for their loyalty, with Paula White’s ministry receiving between $150,000 and $350,000, and Robert Jeffress’ church getting between $2 million and $5 million. Prestonwood Christian Academy, associated with Trumpist Jack Graham, received between $2 million and $5 million – but reported zero jobs being retained. There were numerous other ministries tied to the President that reaped a financial bonanza.

Like Daystar Television Network’s Marcus Lamb, who bought a Gulfstream V just two weeks after receiving a $3.9 million PPP loan. Ostensibly an operating expense to spread the Gospel, Inside Edition reported it was used like an airborne RV for family beach vacations. Lamb’s organization denied using the PPP loan to buy the luxury aircraft, although hastily repaid the loan.

There are so many questions here that nobody is asking. What did America buy with this bailout? Should taxpayers be obliged to underwrite debt-free ministries with plenty of cash to maneuver? These figures are so gargantuan that one questions why such an immense budget? Like the ministry leaders pulling down million dollar salaries – can’t they cinch up their belts a bit to keep the lights on, like most American households are forced to do. And why, oh why, are they considered too big to fail?

In 2008, when General Motors desperately needed financial aid to continue, the government authorized emergency loans to continue paying bills and making payroll, but tied strings to the bailout. GM would have to go through a bankruptcy reorganization, auction off assets to raise cash, reduce management ranks and cut executive pay. The CEO was ousted, shareholders like me were left penniless, and a new company emerged from bankruptcy to continue making the same old crappy cars.

The point is, if you are too big to fail, you should nevertheless pay a price for surviving on the public dole. The government doesn’t operate on grace, and everyone else shouldn’t be forced to keep a bunch of religious goofballs living the high life. The government had the leverage that Chuck Grassley wished he had in his 2008 investigation of tax-exempt religious organizations. Maybe we would have seen some genuine reform of tele-vangelism. Instead, we got shafted by people who shoot pool with some employee here.

I could have ended there, but can’t resist this apt quote about virus relief from Mitch McConnell: “Socialism for rich people is a terrible way to help the American families that are actually struggling,”

How To Become A Mega-Rich Evangelical

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If you love being an evangelical so much, it makes perfect sense to make money off it. Multi-millionaire church leaders might seem like an oxymoron. But the leaders of the top 50 megachurches in America reads like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Many have done it using various methods, but if you want your faith to make you stonking rich, just follow this make-bank business model developed by the top of the evangelical stardom heap:

  1. Become a minister Pastorpreneur. Never mind seminary education and ordination, that’s old school. All you need is to have “vision” and trailblazing aspiration. 
  2. Begin a church. It doesn’t have to start as “mega” – every church has the potential to be church-growthed into a prosperous economic enterprise.  Make sure you form the 501(c)(3) and by-laws to remove transparency and make yourself bulletproof. Appoint your family into all the top positions. Make sure every employee signs an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement.
  3. Make outsiders think they possess a slice of authority, but never sacrifice control. And never, ever disclose how much church finances benefit you personally. Instead, humbly state it “would be the most arrogant thing I could do.”[i]
  4. Zero in on a comfy, white exurban area with down-market churches you can harvest. Cater to their lifestyle, offering greater spectacle and more buoyant life-affirmation. With a little talent, a dynamic praise band, and heavy advertising, soon you’ll be attracting people bored with their own churches to come and own a part of “what God is doing”.
  5. Tout yourself as the community’s church. Come up with high visibility events that get on local news. Become friendly with a few wealthy locals that will share your vision of moving up into that abandoned mega-mall across town. But never, ever ruin your pristine carpet by taking in flood victims!
  6. If the Bible doesn’t fit into your revealing of the deep mysteries of Scripture, make stuff up. Just speak in the love language of God. Nobody reads the Bible anymore anyway.
  7. A rock star preacher does more than pastor a church. Podcasts, Facebook followings, books, blogs, uploaded sermons, public appearances, speaking engagements and conference: these all make Jesus – and particularly you – famous. The more prominent you are, the more you become a religious wholesaler on the path to riches. The impetus is to diversify the client base into a religious conglomerate.
  8. You have a flock of sheep people that can work for you!  Checks in the offering plate can bankroll your writing side-business. Use staff time and church resources to do the leg work behind your books, the royalties of which wind up in your pocket. There are some loosely-worded financial accountability standards, but most churches don’t mind sermons and study materials developed on church time and with church resources (double-dipping). The bigger the megapastor’s footprint, the greater that church’s stature and influence. No ambitious church can argue with heightened public image and political clout.  Having a pastor who is a “go-to” media celebrity only enhances the cult status of the church and its brand recognition.
  9. Retain the enormously profitable proprietary rights over your books, videos, etc. Set up your own parachurch organization (which by the way pads the payroll with family members) to manage all your money under the same tax-free roof. Your parachurch can be transformed into an IRS-defined “church”, with greater opacity of finances to make it hard to follow the money.
  10. Form a separate for-profit business to receive book royalties, income from video productions, freelance speaking gigs to hype your products, etc. And while these assets are produced during your work for the church, and church resources are used to develop them, the copyrights are owned by you, the mega-pastor, through your personal side business.
  11. Disguise your books to look like works of love, not lucre. Donate copies of your books to the church for a personal tax deduction. Remember that your congregants are essentially captive customers. Sell thousands of them to the church bookstore below retail cost. No need to mark them up; you will already receive royalties up to 20 percent of wholesale. The objective is for the church to spend tithe money on numerous copies of your books to drive it onto a bestseller’s list. Everything the church does must be designed around your product line.
  12. For tax purposes, pour your assets into a CRUT (Charitable Remainder Unitrust) and name yourself as trustee. This complex tax shelter allows you, the donor, to pay yourself up to 90 percent of the assets over your lifetime, with 10 percent committed to a charity. (In the time-honored tradition of Ananias and Sapphira, it’s telling just the teensiest lie when a celebrity preacher boasts about donating his book proceeds to his church. He enjoys a hefty nest egg, while the church has to wait for whatever leftovers the trust has not exhausted by the time of his death).
  13. Expand your product placement without even having to leave the building through McChurches. Because the dream-weaver can only be physically present at one venue at a time, your image can now be teleported to preach in multiple campuses via video simulcast uplink. Franchising strings together a conglomerate of satellite operations to expand the revenue base. You do the speaking and take the offering plate, while a local staffer facilitates the satellite feed locally. You continue to profit as the main attraction, without having to pastor anybody.
  14. Remember that you are not only a person, you are a trademark. And that means protecting your property from potential rivals. The congregants are your job security, and they will take their business wherever mega-grifters offer greater spectacle. You’ll need to be trendier and produce more and better theatricality because your church’s back door is as open as it’s front.
  15. Follow these rules, and soon you’ll be a celebrity-leader collecting holy piles of other peoples’ money.

[i] Morgan Fogerty, “The Get with Morgan Fogarty: Pastor Steven Furtick”, WCCB-TV, Inc., November 10, 2015. http://www.wccbcharlotte.com/news/local/The-Get-with-Morgan-Fogarty-Pastor-Steven-Furtick–345443532.html  (accessed November 20, 2015).

Oh, the Wicked Web We Weave…..

~ phroneticchristian ~ Leave a comment

Bits and Pieces I’ve Been Thinking About:

Get Your Stories Straight:

When you try to manage a tangle of lies like a fraudulent election victory, sometimes your mouth gets ahead of your brain, and you forget which part of the truth you are trying to conceal.  Anyone who’s gotten their car repaired knows that the parts equal more than the whole. So it is with keeping track of all the little lies that keep the Big Lie going:

Donald Trump on November 15th: “He won because the Election was Rigged.” Donald Trump, about an hour later, trying to eradicate the morsel of truth he accidently said: “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING!”

Headline-seeking preacher Robert Jeffress, writing for Fox News on November 7th: “If President Biden succeeds, we all succeed.” Later that week, perhaps Jeffress heard the murmurings of his congregation, and put his money where his mouth is mouth where his money is. He must have realized how lonely it can get out ahead of his Dear Leader, and he backpedaled mightily:  “We do NOT have a ‘president-elect’ until electoral college votes December 14.”

The Bible is consistent on truth-telling; lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. I’m reminded of when God was paying attention to Sarah’s snicker and denial: “No! You did laugh.” If you want to be a credible voice, you can’t disavow yourself by pulling a Yogi Berra-ism: “I didn’t say everything I said.” Just like you can’t take your words back, integrity and reputation can’t exist amidst dishonesty and deceit.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do:

“Some believe such a tariff would place a practical limitation on religious freedom.” The CEO of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association was protesting that proposed tariffs on China would effectively amount to a Bible tax on Christians and religious organizations. Large Christian publishing firms outsource printing of Bibles and other Christian titles to Chinese factories providing cheap socialist – perhaps even slave – labor. Some estimate over half of our Bibles are printed in China. Bibles that Christians in China are not allowed to possess. The Southern Baptists, for example, publicly attacked China for its human rights abuses, while its publishing arm has a deep relationship with China. “What does that say about their Christian business principles?” What does it say about us? As believers living in the Land of the Free, flush with Shiny New Things – and Bibles – from China, we need to ask whether we raise concern for human rights only when it is convenient and good for the bottom line.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart:

“Boy, did we screw up!” After decades of deep-pockets funding of right-wing causes, Charles Koch has made his peace with the culture wars. He promises working towards “a better way forward” and “break down the barriers holding people back.” Seems like a Scrooge-like transformation is underway.

“My spiritual pain is unbearable. I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle took away people’s lives, then can it be that I… am guilty for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?” In his twilight years, Mikhail Kalashnikov expressed regret for designing the AK-47. At age 91, he was baptized and thereafter called himself “a slave of God.”  Now a believer, he died repenting of the global killing machine he had created.