Christian Living

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Religious Racketeers
by Patricia Backora, author of: Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
order online from: http://www.publishamerica.com

If Peter, James and John could look down from heaven and watch some of the carnival clowns passing themselves off as Gospel preachers, they would wonder how such cunning wolves in sheep’s clothing could so easily have gotten past the watchmen of the church to pervert the “faith once delivered unto the saints” spoken of in Jude verse 3.

When I lived in California I went to quite a few evangelical meetings, and a few were downright bizarre. One “evangelist” boasted that he loved to take a swim in a pool of his own money, in the back of his own stretch limo. He had the audience repeat “confessions” after him, and the longer I stayed, the more uneasy I felt. This would have been comical if it hadn’t been so tragic: He held his stomach and told the people to confess that they were travailing in birth with money and they would soon bring it forth into their lives. Outside, a few true Christians were picketing the meeting with signs which exhorted the saints not to lay up treasures on earth but in heaven, and they said this guy was only out to get their money, so why bother to go to his meetings?

When I lived in America my brother and I got lots of weird-looking “Junk Mail for Jesus”. An “Anointed Paper Prayer Mat” arrived in the mail. It had a prism-like picture of Jesus on it which opened and closed its eyes, looking compassionately at you. You were supposed to rush it back with your best offering, and only a hard-hearted soul could say “no” to such a sweet-looking picture.

Another mailing contained several different colors of forms and envelopes, to be filled out and sent on succeeding “days of prayer”. A pretty clever way to get several donations out of just one mailing!

One of the weirdest letters my brother ever received came a couple of years after his death. It said something like: “This is your special month of miracles. Don’t let the Lord pass you by. We have spent much time wrestling with satan on your behalf, and God wants you to know that if you fail to act now (send in money, what else?) the devil will make the coming New Year so miserable for you it will make all your past troubles seem like nothing.”

Give me a break! I seriously doubt the devil could do much to a guy who had just gone to heaven and left his troubles behind. Seems to me like the devil comes in mighty handy for those who want to collect protection money to keep satan off people’s backs. The devil serves fishers-for funds very well indeed. Greed and fear are the carrot and stick techniques the unscrupulous use to make a pile “serving Jesus”. Admittedly, the Prosperity Doctrine teaches you to have a “can do”attitude toward success, but the very worst extremes of this materialistic doctrine result in people treating God like a Las Vegas slot machine...put in a tenner and out pops a thousand! The Cross of Christ is forgotten as many invent unto themselves a casino of Christ. Lots of people have had their hearts broken when this Prosperity Doctrine house of cards collapses. Satan has duped them into getting their eyes off the Sovereign Lord of the Universe and depending on a mythical “Force of Faith” which will make all their dreams come true...for the right price!

Thousands of gullible saints have rushed their “Defeat the Devil Donation” to their mail boxes to try and beat the deadline before the TV preacher’s “Special Season of Anointing” expires. Surely that smiling face on the TV will pray for that desperate Christian lady personally. But little does that precious one consider that he hears from thousands of poor souls just like her, and, like Santa Claus delivering toys to every home on earth in just one night, he couldn’t possibly read, much less bother himself with, her personal trials. Although one of the televangelist’s favorite closing lines is “We sure do love you!”

Just what do fishers for funds mean by “love”? What if some poor man out in TV Land “launched out into the deep” and didn’t slow down enough to pray for God’s guidance before mailing the rich preacher the money he’d set aside for his rent? What if he became homeless as a result of doing something presumptuous which God never commanded him to do? After all the hundreds or even thousands of dollars which that man had sent sent in to the grinning TV preacher, would that faraway face send the man so much as a dime to keep him fed and off the street? And if, as the prosperity peddler promises, giving always results in an immediate 100-fold increase wealthwise, why wouldn’t the prosperity pusher follow his own advice, “step out in faith”, and bail the poor man out? It would be in his economic interest to do so, even if he didn’t do it out of love for the homeless guy! For that matter, why doesn’t the rich TV evangelist start an emergency rent relief fund for poor families about to be evicted onto the street, if he truly believes his own sales pitch: The more “seed” you sow, the bigger your harvest. The greater the sacrifice the bigger the blessing. Why don’t they practice what they preach?

Instead we read bizarre accounts of pampered pooches living in air-conditioned dog houses, gold bathroom fixtures, first-class jaunts to the Holy Land, stables full of thoroughbred Arabian horses, nine-bathroom mansions. Plenty to lavish on dogs and horses which don’t have immortal souls, but very little to spend to help a brother in need. The occasional act of charity does make a good photo op, though, to prime the pump and keep the proceeds rolling in.

There’s a real eye-opener in the last part of Proverbs 22:16, one I’ve never heard Prosperity Preachers comment on:”He that giveth to the rich shall surely come to want.” In that context, “want”, means extreme poverty. All I care to say about that is it means what it says, and ignorance of the Bible’s warnings never protected anybody from the consequences, and, believe me, they can be pretty bad. If God did allow somebody to get rich quick for lining a rich preacher’s pockets, He would only be endorsing a doctrine of devils He hates. God doesn’t much like being used as a slot machine.

Every time I see the fancy fixtures which surround some of the preachers on TV; every time I see the fancy designer clothes they wear, and the big diamond rings on their fingers; every time I read about some religious celebrity buying an extra mansion with all the fancy amenities, a bell goes off in my head. Always let the Lord be your guide and take the time to find out the facts about the preachers you trust with God’s money. But if you’ve got good reason to believe that somebody who promises to feed the hungry and reach the lost for Christ is really using your hard-earned cash to buy an extra mansion with a crystal chandelier, a pool room and nine bathrooms, think twice before you support him.

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