TV Evangelists-Godly Men or Greedy Fame Seekers?

Great Debates
1

We’re all familiar with the names, Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. etc. We’re all familiar with the scandals. I never paid much attention to them. While visiting my mother over the holidays, I discovered an enormous building with a huge cross in a field that was previously vacant. Conveniently located off the Parkway and some major highways in New Jersey, and a local cable channel broadcasting nothing but a stream and some music and “He is the Answer” or something like that 24 7. I assume this channel is going to televise mass from this ‘church’ upon its completion. It gave me the weirdest feeling. Are these guys for real? Are they making a difference in our society? Merely using all available media forms? Or are they just greedy two-bit personalities looking to get on the airwaves? Is this mass-marketed religion the wave of the future?
Personally, it gives me the creeps.

If your head is wax, don’t walk in the sun.
-Benjamin Franklin

2

Go with your gut. If it looks like a carnival freak show - it is.

3

A good litmus test is how much time they spend hawking money. If your TV screen has permanently burned on it phone numbers is another. How big the hair of the Evangelists or the wives tells much. The bigger, the richer, or more in debt.

More importantly, how does the money get spent. Do these evangelists help local churches, or do they drain resources from them.

The only one I would trust is Billy Graham. I would guess 60% not the real deal. AT THE LEAST.

4

I think that the “gut instinct” comment is pretty on-target. I’d add one more formula: Consider our Pounder friends. Many of them came here with the idea of “saving us” – out of loving compassion, given their point of view, for some people (us) that clearly hadn’t a clue about God’s truth. (Important note: this generalizes all over the place; I’m fully aware that I’m stereotyping, and I think everybody else is too. Let it be, as a not-always-valid generalization, please.)

The evangelist you can trust is acting out of love…maybe misguided, but with good motives…and it shows. If he’s preaching compassion and warning of judgment, he’s on target. If he’s preaching hate – of anybody, and looking for funds for his ministry, he’s a phony.

5

I don’t know, but when the ‘preacher’ lives in luxury and has access to millions or billions and builds magnificent and costly cathedrals, drives in limo’s, and eats the best foods PLUS has access to the best medical attention, while several million local people starve and die in the streets and gutters daily, I figure something’s wrong.

I figure that 95% of the BIG television evangelists are fakes and greedy and in it for power and money. Of the last 5% I figure that 2% have started out with genuine good intentions but let the power and wealth go to their heads and forgot mostly where they were going.

I look at these massive churches, with their ornate interiors, often expensive and valuable arts, rare statues, collections of ‘donated’ wealth and then look over to the middle US where people live in unheated houses, carry drinking water from a questionable well a mile away, barely get anything to eat and live on starvation diets while others die of disease in the streets and wonder why most of those riches in the church could not be sold to provide help for the poor.

I especially consider the luxury and wealth of the Vatican, which not only contains great works of art, but items of precious materials, rare books and own vast tracts of land.

Why not sell off a few billion of this stuff and help out a few hundred million poor?

I dunno, but is not the basic teachings of the Christian religion one of something like poverty or non-wealth? Is it stated anywhere that churches MUST be furnished with works of luxury and wealth while parishioners starve and die in the streets because they are poor? I mean, I guess it’s OK to be rich, but one is supposed to help out ones brother in need.

So, why donate a $500,000 painting to a church, which will hang it on the wall as a gift to God, when it could be sold, and Gods gift benefit the sick and starving?

You think those corporate jets the TV ministers use are cheap? Billy Graham owns property in Vero Beach, Florida, right on the island where the RICH, RICH community of John’s Island is. He has a home there. Acreage there starts at about a hundred thousand per lot depending upon how far one is from the water. So, why not sell his expensive home and move into a less pricey but just as nice place a few miles further along and donate the left over cash to charity?

I consider myself Christian, but I have my own beliefs and going to a massive, ornate and expensive house of worship while people live in dumpsters two blocks away does not seem right. Nor does it seem right for TV ministers to live in major luxury – even under the disguise of a corporation.

(The Queen of England is one of the richest people in England, yet, technically, she owns nothing. It all belongs to the Crown. TV ministers can have millions at their finger tips and enjoy the comfort it provides but ‘technically’ own nothing much because the ‘corporation’ provides for their needs. What a scam!)

6

NightGirl44 wrote:

You forgot to mention that this kind of “corporation” is also tax-exempt.

The truth, as always, is more complicated than that.

7

Gredy fame seekers. And worse. They are predators, and their prey is the gullible, the weak and the fearful.

I admit I watch them sometimes, for the entertainment value.

I especially enjoy the Catholic bashing.

I would probably enjoy it even if I wasn’t a Catholic. Just not as much.

A seminar on time travel will be held two weeks ago.