Pastor Michael Wilkerson of the New Millennium Life Restoration Fellowship in Spring City, Pennsylvania, preached the “prosperity gospel.” The basic idea is this: God wants his followers to be prosperous, and they can find the road to wealth in faith, positive thinking and contributions to the church.
This is what Wilkerson preached, and he followed up by inviting congregants to invest in his company, which was acquiring suburban mortgages. Last month, however, federal prosecutors accused Wilkerson and two others of conspiring in a $6.3 million mortgage fraud. The congregants have lost everything.
The whole story appeared in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. What I found really interesting about this article is that it put the pastor’s misdeeds in context—religion based affinity fraud is big business:
A 2006 study by the North American Securities Administrators Association estimated that losses from religion-based affinity fraud had reached $2 billion. Those rip-offs have only become more common since, said Ole Anthony, who helms the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, a watchdog group that investigates the financial misdeeds of religious figures.
“In the past several years, I’ve seen more and more fraud in the name of God,” he said. “It remains a serious problem.”
It’s a problem that can be seen all over very-late-night television, which my husband sometimes watches if he can’t sleep. He considers the televangelists to be great theater. And they would be, if they weren’t so dangerous.
I imagine some of them are legitimate. But many of these TV preachers seem more interested in the money than the message. And to further their agendas, they engage in the worst type of manipulation, playing on people’s faith, hopes, dreams and fears.
Speaking in mesmerizing cadence, televangelists rhapsodize about the riches that God wants for us, the sleepless viewers. We can, they say with hypnotic certainty, achieve everything we ever wanted. All we have to do take the first step and plant a seed by sending the good pastor a contribution of $100, $1,000, or even more.
My guess is that the only one getting rich is the so-called preacher. Like the good Pastor Wilkerson. He owned a $1.7million home in the country, with a Lexus and an Escalade in the garage. Not bad for a guy with a long rap sheet, including drug trafficking and theft. But then, of course, he found religion, and the road to prosperity.
Read Church folk stuck when they gave pastor their faith and their money, on Philly.com.
I WILL BE ON AFTERMATH RADIO THIS AFTERNOON AT PACIFIC TIME 4:30-5:00, I’m not sure why it won’t come up on the list on the left, but Donna put up a notice about it on the LOVEFRAUD BLOG so you can find the links there on the list of articles.
We will be discussing my son Patrick’s upcoming parole hearing and how I have decided to present his diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder to the parole board….and make them understand that he WILL REOFFEND again and again and should never be let out of prison.
Oxy, there was a phrase developed by others online that describes the “Holier than thou” (as long as nobody else is looking) crowd. Garbage Can Christian. Of couse this could apply to any religion really.
They are all shiny and look good on the outside, but when you truly get to know them…
Phew! They are rotten to the core.
Dear Phoenix,
THANKS that is a great one!~ Garbage-can Christian! I love it! It is so true! Not only with Christians but with anyone who pretends to be “soooooo nice” when in fact, they are ROTTEN TO THE CORE!
I LUVVVVV it!~ Thanks, Phoenix, I gotta steal that one!
I have been keeping up with the trials of the two men who broke into the Petit home and murdered the two daughters and the wife. Now the younger of the two murderers is on trial and the defense is presenting testimony from his adoptive mother and father with this HUGE PITY PLAY, and now they are going to put his 9 year old daughter on the stand to elicit sympathy for this MONSTER. I am normally not in favor of the death penalty because there is usually not all that much REAL EVIDENCE that someone is guilty, but these men were caught running out of the house on the spot…so there is NO doubt that they are guilty, but this PITY PLAY BY THE DEFENSE just makes me sooooo angry!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055786/Connecticut-home-invasion-killer-Joshua-Komisarjevskys-900-porn-sites-murder.html
Oxy-
>>I LUVVVVV it!~ Thanks, Phoenix, I gotta steal that one!<<
Go Ahead! I already did… lol
Oh, Lord…didn’t know where else to post this and it’s only celebrity gossip, but Kim Kardashian filed for divorce already after only 72 days of marriage. And after they spent millions on a wedding and her ring, etc. I am so sick of hearing about the Kardashians. What is the world coming to?
Oxy,
Glad to hear that you’re on Aftermath tonight. I won’t be able to listen to it today, so make sure to put up the link for the archives. You and EB both came off great when you guys were on last year, so it will be nice to hear you again. (Speaking of which, I especially liked your “southern drawl,” and also the way you dropped the “F-Bomb” in the first forty seconds or so! But don’t worry, it sounded very cute: you Grand Matron types can get away with that sort of thing!
Good luck.
Yes Louise,
TS Eliot said it best:
“This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
This is how the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
@louise
I am sorry you have had the experience of projection, it is really crazy making!!! It never ceases to amaze me how these people’s MO’s are so similar!! CREEPY!! I hope things are better for you now!
Just to be clear…my ex doesn’t live a high lifestyle by any means, but I have known other pastors that did have enormous salaries. My ex is on the verge of being homeless because he refuses to get a real job. He sees himself as “special” “a genius”, “called by God” and thinks most all jobs are beneath him, although that is certainly not what he puts out to the public. He claims persecution and prejudice because of his criminal past keeps him from getting a job. He is an expert at making people feel sorry for him!! He is currently targeting women over the internet because he can “talk” to them for a long period of time online (grooming them) without them seeing his real life. Twitter, Vimeo, many blog sites and Google+ all allow registered sex offenders to use the internet to groom their next victims, these are all very powerful tools in the hands of a sexual predator sociopath!!! This man will re-offend!! He is very good at hiding his dark side!! He will quote low recidivism statistics to everyone that will listen!! I now know that the low recidivism statistics reflect that sexual predators become very skilled at hiding their crimes and also that many of their crimes go unreported! Pedophiles will also claim that most of the people on sex offender websites are because of mutually consenting sex between minors, although I know there are some of those that get caught up in the mess I do NOT believe that they are in the majority!! My ex GREATLY minimized his offense and flat out lied about it! He was 25 and his victim was 8!! I had no way of checking out the details (and I tried) until I found a transcript from the trial in some papers that he left behind after we had broken up. Facebook doesn’t allow sex offenders, but all they have to do is make a Facebook account in a false name like my ex did and they can easily get around the regulations.
And another thing…my ex was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender after a move into a different county. He was in jail for about a month, it should have been a third strike, but the police did not follow through and they released him, even though he was absolutely guilty! He went around claiming he had been exonerated, NOT TRUE! My ex also lied to the DOJ about where he was working and living when he asked to be removed from the Megan’s Law website, I have the email that he sent to them…I sent it to the DOJ….no response! He is no longer on the CA Megan’s Law website but he is still on the Illinois website but his name is misspelled…I contacted them and told them his name is misspelled and they said it has to stay the way it is….Frustrating!!!! I swear to God this guy could get away with murder!! He is on a sex offender website for Auburn CA (where he lives) named homefacts.com because they have out of state sex offenders on their site. He is a very good example of a white washed tomb that is dead inside and full of everything unclean, that the Bible talks about in Matthew 23:27-28!
Matthew 23:27-28
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
Dear Oxy,
I will be looking for the radio program!! I would love to hear more of your story!
I am thankful for all the information on this website!!
Dear Constantine, thank you darling….I cringe when I HEAR MYSELF talk on a tape or radio show. We don’t hear ourselves the way we sound to others when we talk, as we are actually hearing ourselves through our SKULL BONES, but when you hear a tape you hear it through the ear drum and it sounds to you like it does to others then. OUCH! I sound to me like I am talking through my nose! Oh, well…yea, there are great advantages of being an old crone! I have learned to play it to the hilt!
I do know how to act like a “lady,” but I’ve about gotten to the point I don’t worry about it any more when I don’t.
Hosanna, That Matthew 23:27-28 is really RIGHT ON in describing those “trash can Christians” that are so pretty on the outside and so ugly on the inside.