Many religious preachers are scamming the public          

If you see any words that ae underlined, click your mouse on them for additional information                             

I am not implying that they all do this but a great many of them are scammers who are taking ad advantage of gullible religious victims.

Today, everybody is trying to get more money to meet their financial goals.  Everybody wants to become rich by hook or by crook and as fast as possible. This becomes a vicious race where the stronger is trampling on the weaker in our communities. The greedy are becoming richer and richer because they can exploit and manipulate their connections and/or influence they have in our communities.  Worse yet, they claim they are representing the weaker members in our communities by claiming that they have the ear of God.       

Today we are shocked when we hear or read  of financial scams, corporate greed, and virtually anything money-related that isn’t entirely on the up-and-up. While religion has generally been a help in these economically difficult times, there is one segment of Christianity that is scamming as many as they can. They are many of these televangelists. While the world howls at the scam artists who fail to deliver on big promises, Christianity has its very own cooked schemes that’s alive still functioning.

when the national economy is in shambles, it should be criminal to continue to avoid paying the taxes taxes as a charity. Many dishonest so-called preachers of the good word  earn immense amounts of money gathered  from their flock on the promise of a better future. In the business world we call it a scam.

I am using the word preachers in a general sense and it does not only mean the Christian preachers but also includes the Muslim Mullahs, Jewish Rabbis, Hindu Pundits and all other religious preachers. Many of them are bigots and hypocrites in every religious group because there are always dishonest humans among us. The worst thing is to use the name of God, the Prophets, the saints, or the religion itself to make money. The money collected in God’s name should be spent in God’s cause – and that means spending on the mankind to eradicate hunger aand poverty.

The Quran says at 9:34: ““O you who believe! There are indeed many among the priests and anchorites, who in falsehood devour the substance of men and hinder (them) from the way of Allah. And there are those who bury gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah. Announce unto them a most grievous penalty.” unquote

In the Christian Bible it says in 2-Peter 2:1-3: “But false prophets also arose among the people just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”  unquote

It is ironic that some religious  are turning into professional ‘preachers’ because it brings them tax-free money. Preaching God’s word has become a ‘profession’ and the Church is being used to fool the poor general public. God’s name is being sold, one way or the other, and only the preachers are benefiting from it, not the masses. Too much hypocrisy and bigotry is being exercised by these dishonest crooks

                

It is shocking to see that church-goers prefer to directly financially help the priests and not the victims of poverty. The religious scammer-priests don’t care about the homeless, the jobless, the refugees and the orphans.  It’s a shame that sincere humans are being fooled or cheated in the name of humanity. Millions of dollars are raised to help to those poor refugees and the homeless, but the money eventually ends in the bank accounts of the rich dishonest so-called evangelists while the the poor remain poor.

Imagine what could be accomplished with $65 million! That’s a lot of money. Do you think Jesus would have wanted his earthly representatives traveling the globe in luxurious accommodations? Or do you think Jesus would have wanted to see that $65 million used to feed the poor, help the homeless, improve education, or just make some kind of huge impact to help humanity? 

World Changers Church International said: “A long-range, high-speed, intercontinental jet aircraft is a tool that is necessary in order to fulfill the mission of the ministry.”

But after all, God told him to buy the plane. Creeflo Dollar of that so-called ‘church’ said: “If I want to believe that God will give me a $65 million dollar plane, you cannot stop me. You cannot stop me from dreaming. I’m gonna dream until Jesus comes.”  Well Jesus didn’t come to him but this victims of his church did and he got enough money from them to purchase the $65 million dollar jet he dreamed about. His church made $69 million back in 2006,

No religious entity, whatever you may call it, can financially succeed unless and until it is based on the promise it gives to the gullible followers  by providing  hope to the masses that they will receive basic amenities and opportunities to make a decent and honorable living. But the masses in need will not get that relief if the dishonest preachers keep the money for themselves.

Distribution of wealth given to the church and any other religious entity should be justified and constantly monitored by the honest inspectors. Rules and laws should be respected and nobody should be exempt or above the law, even if he is the priest or evangelist leading the religious organization. If these religious leaders maintain equality and respect for everyone,, our society will flourish and the people in need will  be looked after. That should be the goal of every leader of religious entities.

The problem facing the followers of these scam artists is the fact that  they completely trust these scam artists. They take whatever they are told as being the gospel truth.

I will now I present to you some phony leaders of religious entities who are in the business of scamming money from their followers.  But first;

According to the IRS tax guidelines for churches, there are several things a church can do to jeopardize its tax-exempt status.–Churches net earnings may not inure to any private shareholder or individual

They must not provide a substantial benefit to private interests –All tax-exempt organizations must maintain books of accounting to justify their claim for exemption in the event of an audit. In other words, they need to have specific records of where all the money is going. Further, they must show what the employees and leaders are earning per year. They must justify their expenses. As an example a small religious entity will have a hard time explaining why the leader has purchased a car worth half a million dollars.

The IRS may initiate a church tax inquiry if an appropriate high-level Treasury Department official has reasonable belief (based on written facts and circumstances) that the organization is in violation of its tax-exempt status. Now here are some of these scammers.

The phony evangelists I am telling you about in this article were in business strictly to scam their followers out of their money.

Benny Hinn—This preacher is known around the world for his large healing crusades. His television show airs in over 100 countries, and during his time as an evangelist, Hinn claimed that asa a result of his preaching to those in need,  he had seen them get healed from cancer and crippling diseases, and he even says he has seen a dead man being resurrected.

While building his following, Hinn has earned quite a bit of money along the way. His ministry collects more than $200 million a year, and he’s admitted to his salary being over half a million. Hinn owns a private jet, lives in a $10 million house near the Pacific Ocean, stays in hotel rooms that cost thousands each night, and owns luxury vehicles. His lavish lifestyle was first exposed by Dateline NBC, and was under investigation by the US Senate.

Joyce Meyer—Since 1999, Joyce Meyer’s ministry has spent at least $4 million on 5 homes for herself and her children. Meyer’s house is a 10,000 square foot home with an 8-car garage, a large fountain, a gazebo, a private putting green, a pool, and pool house with a new $10,000 bathroom. Her salary was reported at $900,000 back in 2003, and she also enjoys use of a private jet and luxury cars. Needless to say, Meyer has been questioned for years, and she is once again under investigation by the government for possibly violating nonprofit laws.

Kenneth Copeland—Despite being under investigation, Kenneth Copeland refused to submit financial information about his ministry, saying “You can go get a subpoena, and I won’t give it to you. It’s not yours, it’s God’s and you’re not going to get it and that’s something I’ll go to prison over. So, just get over it.” Copeland lives in a mansion that some have said is “the size of a hotel.” He also has acquired a $20 million Cessna Citation private jet for flying around the country to spread the word. And of course, he owns an airport for landing his airplane.

Paula White—The White’s ministry brings in millions each year, and she owns million dollar homes across the country (including in Trump Tower).The couple has been under constant scrutiny for mismanagement of church funds, and they recently got divorced, further complicating matters for the ministry. At last check, they also failed to provide the Senate with all requested records.

 Robert Tilton—This man was American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his paid television program Success-N-Life. At its peak, it aired in all 235 American TV markets. In 1991, Diane Sawyer and ABC News conducted an investigation of Tilton. The investigation, broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, found that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer requests without reading them, keeping only the money or valuables sent to them by viewers which garnered his ministry an estimated $80 million USD a year. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure that the phone operators were off the line in seven minutes. Tilton sued ABC for libel in 1992, but the case was dismissed in 1993, and Tilton's show was off the air by October 30, 1993.

Vaughn Reeves— Judge Dena Martin ordered former pastor Vaughn Reeves to serve consecutive six-year terms ( 54 years) for each of nine fraud counts, in a scheme that cost about 2,900 investors $13.1 million. Among aggravating factors, Martin found Reeves targeted people over age 65 and used religion to influence them. Investigators said Reeves and his three sons used their now-defunct company, Alanar, to trick about 11,000 investors into buying bonds worth $120 million secured by mortgages on church construction projects. Instead, Reeves and his sons diverted money from new investments to pay off previous investors, pocketing $6 million and buying luxuries with the money.

Jim Bakker— This man was a former member of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and, at one time, was among the most influential evangelist preachers in the United States. He cohosted The PTL Club with his wife for several years, interviewing several prominent people in the Christian community in addition to raking in cash from his thousands of loyal followers. Behind his message hid a dark secret that was revealed in 1987. Bakker had spent more than $270,000 to silence a former employee named Jessica Hahn, who had accused him of engaging in a forced sexual encounter with her. It didn’t end there, however. Further investigations into Bakker’s personal finances and the finances of his ministry revealed that he had been siphoning off large proportions of the money donated by his followers into his own bank accounts. Bakker ended up serving time in jail for the sex crime, and his marriage ended soon after, amid mudslinging from both sides. He never regained the level of prominence that he had enjoyed before 1987.

Peter Popoff— This man was a big name in faith healing circles in the 1980s, with his television show being broadcast nationally in the United States. His show generally took the form of Popoff calling people out of his audience and apparently using his so-called connection with God to decipher what ailments they suffered before laying his hands on them and then providing the cure.

The scam worked for several years in the 1980s, and it made Popoff a very rich man. However, his deeds eventually caught the attention of James Randi and Alexander Jason, who have made a career out of their skepticism of phony televangelists.  They investigated the ministry and found that attendees of Popoff’s shows were asked to write down what they would most like before the show. These requests then went to Popoff’s wife, who used an earpiece to communicate the really juicy ones to her husband. Peter would then call the afflicted persons onto the stage, feign guessing the issue they were suffering, and offering to  help them by praying to God. Following the revelations, Popoff’s ministry collapsed, and he declared bankruptcy.

I am convinced that there are other so-called religious preachers scamming their gullible victims out of their money in the belief that these other scammers will make them well again.

When you think of the mega-wealthy who rake in millions each year and live in lavish lifestyles, you probably don’t think about religious preachers. obviously spreading the gospel has become a very profitable business for several well-known televangelists, affording them the opportunity to live in mansions, own private jets, take exotic trips, relax in hotel rooms that cost thousands per night, and even own second and third homes.

Those who are really religious don’t seek wealth. As an example, Pope Francis chose to live in a simple apartment in the Vatican.  When one of his archbishops in a European country lived in a million dollar house, the Pope evicted him from the house These preachers are heads over nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations, so whenever one of them starts to flaunt their wealth, the government is going to take notice. And six of the wealthiest televangelists have been the subject of Senate investigations to ensure they aren’t taking advantage of their nonprofit status.   Sd  said in the beginning of this article, these people were more interested in money that spreading the good word. They are in my opinion, part of the scum of the world.

In another article that I will publish in my blog, I will tell you about some of the televangelists who were denounced for sexual activities.