Guest Post by Morbo
I’ve never had much use for Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), but I have to give the man some credit: He certainly has shaken things up with these letters to TV ministries.
In case you missed it, Grassley has sent letters to six mega-ministries, asking some pointed questions about their finances. One of his targets is Benny Hinn, perhaps the most transparently fraudulent evangelical TV huckster out there.
Hinn lives in a $10 million estate (considered a “parsonage”), owns a fleet of cars and a private jet. He travels all over the world claiming to heal people of various afflictions. Over the years, numerous news media outlets have tried to take Hinn down. They’ve pointed out his opulent lifestyle. They’ve tracked down people Hinn claims to have healed and found some of them unhealed and others dead.
To no avail. Hinn still packs them in. Let him pack them in — but none of his snake-oil empire should be tax exempt.
Whoever advised Grassley on this matter did some homework. The letters to the ministries are pointed and raise specific issues. His letter to Joyce Meyer Ministries, for example, asks for a “detailed accounting of all expense account items for Joyce and David Meyer for years 2004 to present, including, but not limited to, clothing expenses and cosmetic surgery for years 2002 to present.”
This is rich. I’d like to hear Meyer explain why a facelift is a legitimate ministry expense. Maybe she’ll say she just wants to look sharp when Jesus comes back.
Meyer is also asked to explain her purchase of a $23,000 “commode with marble top.”
Other folks on the Grassley hit list include the appropriately named Creflo Dollar, Paula White Ministries, Eddie Long Ministries and Kenneth Copeland Ministries. (If only Creflo’s parents had been clairvoyant! They could have named him something more fitting, such as “Gimmieyerlast.”)
In 2005, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution profiled Eddie Long, whose ministry is based in Lithonia, Ga. Asked about his $3 million salary, $1.4-million house and ministry-provided Bentley worth $35,000, Long replied:
“We’re not just a church, we’re an international corporation. We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair….You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”
Yikes. Got hubris, Rev. Long? Try a little humility. I’m almost certain Jesus is for that.
I’m not normally for the government messing around in private religious matters. It’s a free country, and if you want to worship a golden calf, I say have at it. But these ministries appear to be engaged in such obvious fraud and abuse of the tax code that it’s high time someone took a look.
I don’t know if anything will come of the Grassley probe, but maybe it will at least throw a scare into some of these charlatans. Go get ’em, Chuck!