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Get Jesus on that credit card!

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I negligently missed a wonderful expose of Paul Crouch and his $120 million a year Trinity Broadcasting Network.

The network's donors also help fund generous salaries for Crouch ($403,700 a year) and his wife, Jan ($361,000), and an array of perks, including a TBN-owned jet and 30 homes across the country, among them a pair of Newport Beach mansions and a ranch in Texas.

I've never seen John Avanzini but he sounds like a TV evangelist with a unique perspective:

"John 19 tells us that Jesus wore designer clothes," Avanzini said, referring to the purple robe that Christ's tormentors wrapped around him before the Crucifixion. "I mean, you didn't get the stuff he wore off the rack….

William Lobdell also covers some of the history of the American prosperity gospel racket that has been used to such effect by religious hucksters as diverse as Rev. Ike, Jim Bakker and Robert Tilton.

In the 1960s, Pastor Kenneth Hagin, often described as the father of the Word of Faith movement, raised the profile of the prosperity gospel still further, promoting it on television and in books with titles such as "Godliness Is Profitable" and "How to Write Your Own Ticket with God."

TBN's Promise: Send Money and See Riches

Richard Evans Lee
September 28, 2004 •
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Yow! Thanks for this story -- I had not been introduced to the full horror of Jan Crouch yet, just had heard about the allegations against her husband. Some years ago, I used to come home from the recording studio and turn on the Praise the Lord channel with Jim and Tammy. I was fascinated (and moderately ashamed of my fascination). How could such monstrous conmen be supported by real human beings. How could they peddle their gawd amusement park (at the time, Heritage USA)? My favourite horrible memory of that show was Jim heading into the desert near Vegas to meditate with his bible. He first had to decide which car was best for this journey, and on this day he chose his Rolls-Royce. Yup, the lawd suggested he take his chauffeur-driven Rolls out the highway, from which he decamped about thirty feet into the wilderness, sat his flabby butt on a rock, and murditated. At the time, I could only shake my head ("Only in America!) at the prosperity doctrine which seemed to say that jeezussgawd wanted his flock to become fiercely materialistic and to buy ugly wigs and to have eye-makeup tattooed. Now we have Jan Crouch, truly much more insane that Tammy could ever be. There could be no caricature of this woman, since she is already fully in a grotesqe class of her own. Where does she get her wigs constructed? How does she know that jeezusgawd wants earth women to look like former Las Vegas show queens with OCD? Yow. Thanks for forking this up. [I wanna try gmail, too, iffen you have any left] William

Posted by: William Scott Scherk | October 4, 2004 11:51 AM

trying to get in touch with William Scott Scherk

Posted by: Belligerina | February 16, 2005 3:27 AM

HI, I need your money. Just send it in and I'll cry my tears of blessing on it. I will then keep the money as a seed. So that it will grow me a new home. Wise up! Plant your money in true good soil. How about the local Church, a needy member in your family or that poor family down the road.

Posted by: Rev. Money | March 11, 2005 5:24 AM

How do you feel?

Feel free to share your feelings about Get Jesus on that credit card!. Please stick to the theme of the entry. Disagreement is fine. Homophobia, racism, and kindred expressions of hatred will be deleted. This site is one of my hobbies. I genuinely enjoy hearing from people and hate moderating or killing comments. Forthright disagreement is fine as long as it is civil.
My thanks,
Richard

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