CNS STORY: Senate Finance Committee launches probe of Protestant televangelists

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WASHINGTON LETTER Nov-21-2007 (1,110 words) Backgrounder. With photo. xxxn

Senate Finance Committee launches probe of Protestant televangelists

By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In November, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, announced a probe involving six prominent Protestant televangelists: Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Paula White and Bishop Eddie Long.

Grassley sent letters to each, asking detailed questions about purchases, gifts and "love offerings," demanding answers by Dec. 6 for an investigation into possible financial misconduct by these tax-exempt ministries.

Grassley told the Des Moines Register, a daily newspaper in Iowa, that religion isn't the issue behind the probe. "Churches aren't any different from any other nonprofit organization, and they have to abide by the same tax laws," he said.

The six televangelists, all of whom have been accused of maintaining extravagant lifestyles, preach the "prosperity gospel."

This theology is based on an interpretation of biblical passages that suggests God will provide believers with financial wealth. One such passage is Chapter 8, Verse 18 of the Book of Deuteronomy, which says in part, "Remember then, it is the Lord, your God, who gives you the power to acquire wealth."

Copeland, in his book "How to Prosper From the Inside Out," wrote: "As the seeds of prosperity are planted in your mind, in your will and in your emotions ... they eventually produce a great financial harvest."

Grassley is questioning items such as a personal "gift" of $2 million to Copeland, the"love offerings" Bishop Long receives instead of a salary, and Meyer's purchase of a table, clock and vases for more than $60,000.

Could such alleged improprieties happen in the Catholic Church? There have been instances but nothing on such an epic scale.

Take the case of Rodney Rodis, an ex-priest who was defrocked before his guilty pleas this year on charges of embezzling at least $600,000 and possibly up to $1 million over 12 years from two parishes in the Diocese Richmond, Va. He is in jail awaiting sentencing.

It was subsequently revealed he had married a woman in the 1990s and had been living with her in a house in the neighboring Diocese of Arlington, Va. None of his Arlington neighbors suspected he was a priest, and nobody in the Richmond Diocese suspected he was married.

In October, Anton Zgoznik, 40, who had been assistant treasurer of the Diocese of Cleveland, was convicted on 15 federal counts in a scheme to defraud both the diocese and the Internal Revenue Service. He'll be sentenced in February.

Involved in the same kickback scheme was Joseph Smith, former diocesan chief financial officer and legal secretary. His trial on 23 counts starts in April. The amount at issue was $784,000.

In November, during their fall general meeting in Baltimore, the Catholic bishops heard a report from the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, which since its founding two years ago has already published three "Standards for Excellence" booklets outlining codes of ethics and accountability for dioceses, parishes and nonprofit groups.

"We have backed up those standards with all kinds of resources that we have gleaned from scanning the horizon of the Catholic Church in the U.S.," said the group's executive director, Kerry Robinson.

Also at the meeting, the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Diocesan Audits issued a report recommending annual reporting by every parish. Since parishes contain a diocese's most significant assets, the report said,"strong systems of internal controls are necessary to reduce risk of fraud, misuse, waste and embezzlement."

For decades the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation has collected details of the luxuries TV preachers lavish on themselves, and has turned over some of its findings to Grassley at his request.

One early, and ongoing, foundation project that encouraged members to take homeless people into their own homes found that at the root of their destitution was the fact they gave to televangelists.

According to foundation president Ole Anthony, "We learned a significant percentage spent their last dollar on this heavenly lottery," a term he used to disparage televangelists.

In an interview with Catholic News Service, he said Trinity Foundation leaders wrote to the televangelists whose program pitches resulted in people's homelessness. Not only didn't they write back, "they didn't even answer my phone calls," he said.

Anthony said when the foundation complained to the National Association of Religious Broadcasters, the reply was: "We can't do anything." Then the foundation went to local authorities. The program pitches were "fraud per se in many cases," Anthony asserted, but "they told me it was protected speech."

He added that the preachers targeted by Grassley are likely to contend religious persecution by the government and say nobody should question "what they're doing in the name of God."

In fact, Dollar told the Atlanta Journal Constitution daily newspaper: "Are we saying the First Amendment is null and void by allowing this to happen?" The newspaper also quoted a Nov. 11 address by Bishop Long to his congregation in which he called Grassley's letter "an attack on our religious freedom and privacy rights."

Since Trinity started conducting its own investigations, one favorite target is Hinn. It has issued a six-hour, three-DVD set, "The Many Faces of Benny Hinn," and a book, "The Confusing World of Benny Hinn."

In a recent issue of its bimonthly magazine, The Wittenburg Door, Trinity skewered Copeland and his property holdings in a feature called "Lifestyles of the Rich and Religious."

"With their celebrity and their money, they start believing that they're special. If you listen to their program, it sounds like they and God are having a personal discussion eight to 10 hours a day," Anthony said. "Jesus Christ was God's only son and yet (in the Bible) he spoke verbally to him only three times."

Another watchdog group is the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which has more than 2,000 members. Only 34 TV evangelists are registered with the council, which leaves up to 80 percent of the television preachers, including the six in the Grassley probe, largely unaccountable to anyone.

Ken Behr, a spokesman for the council, told CNS that with the exception of Bishop Long, who belongs to the Baptist Church, the probe targets have no larger denominational authority to whom they answer. Trinity's Anthony said they have "family members and yes men" on their governing boards.

Behr said most queries directed to the council are about nonmembers. Like the Better Business Bureau, the council is powerless to act against nonmembers.

For those organizations that become members, "by the time they join, they've already done much of the work" necessary to gain accreditation, Behr said, although "we've worked with some ministries for multiple years so that they can be fully accredited."

END

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