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Post by Watchman on Nov 12, 2007 13:50:05 GMT -5
NEWS BRIEF: "Senate Panel Probes 6 Top Televangelists", CBS Evening News, November 6, 2007 "CBS News has learned Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct. Letters were sent Monday to the ministries demanding that financial statements and records be turned over to the committee by December 6th. According to Grassley's office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles." "The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. Three of the six - Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar - also sit on the Board of Regents for the Oral Roberts University." Once again, the cause of Jesus Christ is badly damaged by stories of this nature. Rumors have circulated for years about some of these ministries using ministry money for personal gain, but this is the first time that a government agency is investigating. Christians are to be set up for massive persecution! When President Bush is thoroughly discredited and standing for War Crimes, Christians will be discredited with him because so many pastors and pew sitters have supported him because they thought he was Christian. When the secular world looks upon the transgressions of very public and very powerful Christian leaders, too many will sympathize with a repressive government which is jailing Christians for their faith. What is the ultimate goal of the Illuminati regarding the persecution of Christians? www.cuttingedge.org
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Post by Watchman on Nov 20, 2007 12:59:59 GMT -5
Going After the Money Ministries
By DAVID VAN BIEMA
Correction Appended: Nov. 19, 2007
On the website for their ministry based in Newark, Texas, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland commit to "teach Christians worldwide who they are in Christ Jesus and how to live a victorious life." And they appear to be victorious in theirs, with books in 22 languages, a global crusade schedule and a TV show reaching millions. No less a luminary than presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is advertised to appear on the show for six days straight to discuss "character in the Bible."
Huckabee might want to opt out. On Nov. 6 the Copelands got a saw-toothed, 42 point questionnaire inquiring into their own character from Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance. Grassley wanted to know how Kenneth Copeland--who as a church leader pays no taxes but is expected to plow revenue back into the public welfare--got a private plane and whether flights to Hawaii and Fiji qualified as business trips. Grassley sought credit card receipts and the numbers of the church's offshore bank accounts.
Copeland wasn't Grassley's only pen pal. He also wrote to the Revs. Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White, in total six televangelists who are part of an evangelical subculture known loosely as Prosperity gospel. "Recent news reports regarding the possible misuse of donations made to religious organizations" prompted the probe, Grassley wrote. The ministers' responses are technically voluntary, but the Senator has asked for them in a month and has mused that the replies could lead to testimony under oath. If so, Grassley could end up wiping out what some consider a kleptocracy but what is certainly the public face of a popular theology.
Prosperity adherents believe the right thoughts and speech, along with giving to the church, will prompt divine repayment in this life, with a return as high as $100 on each dollar handed up. On a small scale, Prosperity's positive thinking has sometimes energized the march of the poor into the middle class, but many Christians find it theologically and ethically perverse. Prosperity dominates American religious TV, and millions of adherents send millions of dollars to preachers they have never met. For Grassley, this might be fine if the ministers put all the money back into their mission work. But his now famous question about Meyer's $23,000 commode suggests he questions the destination of her estimated $124 million annual take. He has asked for her real estate records, reminding her fellow Missourians of an extended duel she had with Jefferson County officials that resulted in her agreeing in 2005 to pay taxes on half of her $20 million headquarters.
Among Grassley's questions to Dollar was one about a gift of $500,000 to Copeland. Dollar told TIME that he made a gift but said the sum was not that high. He and the Copelands claim to be tax-compliant. Hinn and Long did not respond by press time. White's ministry says to the best of its knowledge it complies with all tax codes. Meyer posted a 2007 IRS letter confirming tax-exempt status.
The larger conservative Christian community has not been supportive. "Grassley has a shotgun, and lead is spraying all over the place, but I'm looking at the good that can be done," says Marvin Olasky, editor of the evangelical weekly World. J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, where some of the six advertise, hopes all can prove their innocence, but he adds, "If God wants to use a Senator to help the American church clean up its act, then I say bring on the Reformation."
But should Grassley play the role of Martin Luther? Some see Grassley's acts as a religious vendetta, launched by a white-bread Evangelical who doesn't get the group's view of rich pastors as a sign of divine grace. Grassley has hinted that his purpose may be to revamp tax laws to keep up with rapacious preachers. Remarks Charles Haynes, senior scholar with the First Amendment Center: "I'm worried that [the six] might be used to push for stringent transparency regulations that would affect all religious groups. They are extreme, and extreme cases can lead to bad law."
Grassley rejects the criticism. "We're not looking at doctrine. I don't know much about the words Prosperity gospel," he says. But he acknowledges that religious-freedom concerns may make an investigation a "little more difficult to defend." Fellow Senators--"I won't give their names"--have asked what they should tell the preachers. Says Grassley: "My answer was, 'Tell them to do what all the other nonprofits do--answer my letter.'" And hope for a different kind of grace.
The original version of this article referred mistakenly to a 2006 letter from the IRS confirming the Joyce Meyer Ministry's tax-exempt status. While the IRS reviewed the ministry's activities from 2004 to 2006, it sent its letter of confirmation in October 2007.
with reporting by Mark Thompson / Washington
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Post by Watchman on Jul 30, 2008 13:12:23 GMT -5
4 TV ministries won't comply with probe
Posted on Jul 25, 2008 | by Staff WASHINGTON (BP)--Four television ministries still have refused to comply fully with a U.S. Senate committee's probe into their financial records nearly nine months after first being asked.
The ministries of Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long and Randy and Paula White have provided only partial information or none at all, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R.-Iowa, who initiated the investigation by requesting information from six televangelists in early November.
The ministries of Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer, however, gave "extensive answers to all questions," Grassley said.
Grassley's questions of the televangelists were based on accounts of abuses from watchdog organizations and whistleblowers, as well as investigative news reports, he has said. Accusations of contributions being used to support lavish lifestyles have been leveled against at least some of the televangelists.
In a news release, the minority leader on the Senate Finance Committee said of the noncompliant televangelists:
-- Copeland has provided partial answers to a majority of questions but nothing on inquiries about compensation. He has said he will not give further answers even if served a subpoena.
-- Dollar has refused to provide any responses, and attorneys for his church said the televangelist has not changed his mind.
-- Long has given only general information on his ministry.
-- The Whites have submitted answers only on certain matters.
Finance Committee staff members are communicating with lawyers for the ministries in an attempt to gain responses, Grassley said. In Copeland's case, the staff is seeking advice from Senate lawyers on what should be done next, Grassley said.
"The ministries that continue not to cooperate appear to be heeding the advice of attorneys who are not familiar with congressional oversight in general and specifically the Finance Committee's oversight and legislative work in the area of tax-exempt organizations over the last seven years," Grassley said in the July 7 release. "These attorneys who aren't part of the ministries themselves have a natural incentive to prolong the process as long as possible."
Grassley commended Meyer and Hinn, saying they had "provided information over and above what was requested." Both televangelists have communicated they are "instituting reforms without waiting for the committee to complete its review," he said.
In his initial request, Grassley asked the televangelists to provide personal and ministry-related financial records. Sen. Max Baucus, D.-Mont., the Finance Committee's chairman, joined Grassley March 11 in calling for the ministries to cooperate. They set a March 31 deadline for compliance.
All the televangelists targeted by the committee are identified with the "word of faith" movement, Copeland has said on his ministry's website. "Word of faith" teaching normally includes the "prosperity gospel," which asserts that the Bible promises physical and financial blessings to followers of Christ. Evangelical critics of the teaching, however, say such doctrine mistakenly equates God's promises of blessing with temporal, materialistic success.
The founder of a watchdog organization said the noncompliance of televangelists such as Copeland and Dollar appears to be prompting Grassley to consider further regulation of nonprofit ministries.
"Religious conservatives, like ourselves, believe this to be an unfortunate development, but if donors do not insist on even greater levels of ministry cooperation with donor advocate [organizations], unneeded government regulation is sure to follow," Rusty Leonard of MinistryWatch.com said in a written statement.
"It has been donors' willingness to ignore the clear warning signs from a relatively few questionable ministries that will partly cause any increased government oversight," Leonard said. "The ministry community's unwillingness to call out those who are simultaneously abusing donors, the Word of God and current government regulations through meaningful self-policing also [is] to blame for any burdensome new regulations."
Letters on behalf of Copeland and Dollar were sent March 31 to inform members of the Senate Finance Committee of the noncompliance, saying it was based in part on the targeting of teachers from the "word of faith" movement. The lawyers said Copeland and Dollar not only objected to the investigation's potential infringement of the First Amendment's protection of free religious exercise but also the senators' failure to operate through the current process provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Both ministries said they would comply with an examination by the IRS under the protections it provides.
The names of the televangelists and their ministries, plus the locations of their headquarters, are: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Newark, Texas; Creflo Dollar, World Changers Church International, College Park, Ga.; Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, Ga.; Joyce Meyer, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Fenton, Mo.; Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn Ministries, Grapevine, Texas; and Randy and Paula White, Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries, Tampa, Fla. --30-- Compiled by Baptist Press Washington bureau chief Tom Strode.
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