Televangelist Releases Financial Documents

[deanb]

http://www.cbs46.com/news/14565577/detail.html

My favorite part

"Dollar said his salary comes personal investments, including businesses and real estate ventures. But he said the church gave him a Rolls Royce, which he uses largely for special occasions."

Thoughts?

[mickey]

knew i should have become a preacher insted of a porn peddler! :crybaby:

[MiamiB]

Porn and religion are basically selling the same thing...a very basic human need.

I don't see any difference between Oral Roberts and myself.

We both use this need to get people to open their wallets for us!

Lee

[SPACE GLIDER]

Porn and religion are basically selling the same thing...a very basic human need.

I don't see any difference between Oral Roberts and myself.

We both use this need to get people to open their wallets for us!

Lee

Blew my mind. Never really thought about it that way.

[Lee]

We both use this need to get people to open their wallets for us!

The difference is, one of those industries is full of scammers and scumbags.

The other is the porn business.

Regards,

Lee

[NashC81]

Creflo's 'prosperity gospel' is a fuckin' joke. If your poor, its cause you don't love god enough...

[Lee]

The other thing that i find really interesting about this, is that it is a Republican starting all of this.

Not to mention we're supposed to have a seperation of church and state. We cant have a copy of the 10 commandments outside a court but we can use the Senate to investigate religious donations and their uses.

Regards,

Lee

[Kushiel]

The other thing that i find really interesting about this, is that it is a Republican starting all of this.

Not to mention we're supposed to have a seperation of church and state. We cant have a copy of the 10 commandments outside a court but we can use the Senate to investigate religious donations and their uses.

Regards,

Lee

There's a slight difference in this situation, I think...
It's not stated, but I would hazard a guess that the investigation is brought up because of the non-profit benefits that religious institutions receive, most especially the tax deductions. I believe that it is very much a government concern if religious avatars of the "Prosperity Gospel" are using the church to launder/embezzle/make use of money in an illegal fashion. It's one thing if a figure of clergy has his home provided (say, in an adjacent lot to the church like my childhood pastor's was) by the congregation... That part I could understand. Some of these people, though, are putting on a circus and calling it proselytization so that they can have a write-off.

Separation of Church and state mean they don't influence how the each other is ran (which is utterly ridiculous, considering all the references to God and Christians in the last eight years by the "Chief"), not that clergy are beyond law.

[basschick]

yeah - you're both oral

I don't see any difference between Oral Roberts and myself.

[Pistol]

Juim and Tammy Baker....now these guys. Some things never change do they?

[chadknowslaw]

Porn and religion are basically selling the same thing...a very basic human need.

Pornographers are much more upfront and honest about what they do, plus pornographers don't try to stop people from buying religion.

[chadknowslaw]

The other thing that i find really interesting about this, is that it is a Republican starting all of this.

An Iowa republican at that. However, McCarthy of the McCarthy Era was just a Senator from Wisconsin. The Senators from small states usually have their seats sewn up so they can do controversial things that Senators from competitive states could not. Grassley is definitely more of a moderate and definitely secure in his Senate seat for so long as he is alive, and he does take on wasteful things. Grassley investigating possible tax evaders comes as no surprise to me.

I actually have a picture of me talking with Sen. Grassley on one of his annual visits to my county [he visits every county in Iowa every year]. He looks like he was listening, but he wasn't. I wish I had that picture in a digital version, but 1999 was before digital cameras and yours truly ever met.