How Sleazy Christian Con Artists Took Over the GOP

I came across this piece on AlterNet that was just too good to pass up since it describes the consequences of the Christofascist take over of the GOP base, a process that I began witnessing before I resigned from my GOP City Committee position and walked away form the Republican Party. The result has been that sane, serious minded Republicans - e.g., my entire extended family - have bolted from the GOP and the death spiral initiated by the Christofascists seems to be accelerating except in the eyes of those living in an alternate universe or who have shown themselves to be gullible to lies and smoke and mirrors.  Today, instead of advancing problem solving policies and serious program proposals, the entire GOP message has been transformed to attract those motivated by greed, ignorance, religious extremism, a severe fear of modernity and, of course,  racism.  It is not a pretty picture and, in my view, it all ties back to the rise of the Christofascists in the Republican Party.  Here are column excerpts:

The culture of fundamentalist Christianity has had profound impacts on the Republican party in the past few decades, moving Republicans to the right on various issues and forcing Republicans to prioritize gay-bashing and attacks on reproductive rights. The shutdown, however, ended up demonstrating something even more sinister. Republicans are no longer just cribbing their political ideology from fundamentalist Christianity. Increasingly, conservative politicians are abandoning the basic task of representing the interests of their voters and instead are exploiting their voters in the same way televangelists and other fundamentalist charlatans exploit the true believers that come to them looking for spiritual salvation.

 

Ted Cruz is the most prominent example, at least in the past month. After the shutdown debacle, it became clear that Cruz has no interest in using his position as a Texas senator to work on behalf of the voters who got him there. Instead, his M.O. is pure sleazy televangelist: Lots of public grandstanding to convince his marks, previously known as constituents, that he's on their side, for the sole purpose of shaking them down for money and support without offering anything in return.

The Houston Chronicle lamented ever endorsing Cruz, comparing him unfavorably to his predecessor Kay Baily Hutchinson. Hutchinson actually bothered to represent her voters, putting a priority on the state’s economic development. Cruz is as different from Hutchinson as a miracle-promising conman taking old ladies for their Social Security checks is from the local minister who actually bothers to do the unglamorous work of holding hands, wiping tears and performing weddings and funerals for parishioners.

That Cruz resembles a faith healer selling lies to gullible people more than a politician working to represent the interests of his voters shouldn’t be too surprising. His family is wrapped up with some of the worst of the worst when it comes to sleazy preachers seeking to exploit vulnerable people. Cruz’s father is a member of Purifying Fire Ministries, founded by Suzanne Hinn, the wife of one of the nation’s most despicable fundamentalist conmen, Benny Hinn. Hinn is a minister only in the loosest sense of the word: He goes about the world conducting fake faith-healing “miracles” that make him a lot of money, but he doesn’t actually provide any services real people need. It’s all just magic tricks to con the rubes out of their hard-earned money.

Of course, Cruz is far from the only politician who apparently models his career off fraudulent fundamentalist preachers who love self-aggrandizing drama but don’t care too much about, well, caring for their people. The all-flash-no-substance model is beginning to take over the Republican party.

 

Obviously, the right has always had a charlatan side, with plenty of self-appointed leaders viewing the faithful as marks to bilk for cash instead of giving people the services promised. Faith healers and other religious conmen have preyed on fundamentalist Christian audiences for over a century now. As historian Rick Perlstein wrote in the Baffler, conservative media has long subsisted on selling snake oil to their followers and running mail order schemes to defraud conservative readers while making the leaders wealthy. But, by and large, Republicans of the past did consider it a duty to actually work for the people who elected them. That relationship has fundamentally changed.  . . . the modern Republican sees the voters as rubes he can hoodwink into sending him to D.C. while not doing any actual work for them.

Christianists Claim that They Killed GCB

The boyfriend and I rarely watch televisions on Sunday nights - that is until we became hooked on GCB.  Having lived in Alabama, Texas and Virginia, the characters on GCB proved only too true to life in terms of their hypocrisy, shallowness and mean spirited behavior -  all the while as they proclaimed themselves "godly Christians" and wore their religiosity on their sleeves.  Needless to say the Christianists and modern day Pharisees of the far right were none too happy with the show since it held up a mirror to their routine behavior.  Among those who had their panties in a HUGE wad were the so-called One Million Moms - yes, the same anti-gay bitches who have been harassing J C Penny for its ads with Ellen Degeneres.  They have put major pressure on ABC to drop the show and are rejoicing that ABC seems to have given in to the pressure.  Joe Jervis reports this:

You knew this was coming.

"GCB" got axed by ABC and won't be coming back for a second season. Praise the Lord! Jesus Christ will not be mocked! God is using OneMillionMoms.com to help remove this filth from television. As the hands and feet for the Lord, we are making a real difference. These accomplishments are the result of the Lord's blessing on the prayers, action alerts, email letters, and gifts from concerned and generous supporters.

Candidly, I would argue that the worse filth on television are the televangelist shows with their snake oil merchants and flim flam pleas for money , not to omit of course Pat Robertson others of his ilk.  Some want to fight back and change.org has a petition drive to convince ABC to rethink its decision.  Please consider signing the  "Save GCB" petition HERE.  Over 25,00 have signed so far.

Snake Oil Evangelists Intend to Defy Congressional Probe

In yet another example of how it is in reality the Christianists and their "ministries" that seek "special rights" as opposed to the LGBT community, attorneys for two "evangelists" have indicated that their clients will not cooperate with a Congressional investigation to determine whether or not their "ministries" have been operated within the requirements of Sec. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code which governs tax-exempt and charitable organization status. One of the requirements of holding tax-exempt status is that none of the proceeds of the organization inure to the benefit of private individuals not in line with the organization's charitable purpose.

In the case of these "ministries," under investigation, the ministry leaders are living like multi-millionaires, in some cases driving Rolls Royces, etc. Hence, Congress has every reason to be reviewing the non-profit/charitable purpose of the alleged ministries. In my opinion, these "evangelists" are crooks who shake down the ignorant and unwary and reap incredible personal financial benefits. There are times I think that I should form a "ministry' and get on the gravy train. The problem is, I am too honest to fleece people the way these preachers do. Here are some highlights (http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=27749&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0403):

Lawyers for "prosperity gospel" televangelists Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar have told U.S. senators that they will not comply with a probe into their ministries because it threatens religious freedom rights.Letters on behalf of Copeland and Dollar were sent March 31 to inform members of the Senate Finance Committee of the noncompliance, contending that the probe was based in part on the targeting of teachers from the "word of faith" movement. The lawyers said Copeland and Dollar not only objected to the investigation's potential infringement of the First Amendment but also the senators' failure to operate through the current process provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The other targeted televangelists –- Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, and Randy and Paula White -– provided the requested documents by March 31 or pledged to do so.

Grassley has said his questions of the televangelists were based on accounts of abuses from watchdog organizations and whistleblowers, as well as investigative news reports. Accusations of contributions being used to support lavish lifestyles have been leveled against at least some of the televangelists.

Grassley's inquiry called for the televangelists to provide such documents as credit card statements, expenses for their secondary residences, gifts given by the ministries and lists of private automobiles. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) has encouraged cooperation by the televangelists, but the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) has expressed concerns about the probe's implications for ministries.

The names of the televangelists and their ministries, plus the locations of their headquarters, are: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Newark, Texas; Creflo Dollar, World Changers Church International, College Park, Ga.; Eddie Long, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, Ga.; Joyce Meyer, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Fenton, Mo.; Benny Hinn, Benny Hinn Ministries, Grapevine, Texas; and Randy and Paula White, Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries, Tampa, Fla.

Oral Roberts to the Rescue?

You know things are not going well for you (or the institution you founded) when Time Magazine (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1677098,00.html) does a story on your institution's financial/sex scandal. The newest issue of Time looks in unflattering terms and detail at the mess at Oral Roberts University. If nothing else, ORU is following in the tradition of other bogus televangelists such as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. One has to wonder why the gullible (sheeple, as Pam Spaulding calls them) continue to give money to these folks, only to get burned yet again. Here are a few story highlights:

[A]t age 89, the Tulsa, Oklahoma university that bears his name has called Roberts home from a California retirement — under the most excruciating of circumstances. On Wednesday, the head regent at Oral Roberts University announced that the school is an astonishing $52.5 million in debt. This news arrived just three weeks after the revelation of a wrongful termination suit filed against the school by three former professors who claim that they were fired after providing the school's Board of Regents with a report detailing moral and ethical lapses by Oral's son Richard, who had inherited the school's presidency from his father, and Richard's wife Lindsay. Among the allegations: the Roberts had remodeled their home eleven times in 14 years with University money, that they bankrolled one of their daughters' $29,411 trip to the Bahamas with school funds and that Lindsay Roberts had spent the night in an O.R.U. guest-house with an underage male nine times.

The whole affair is a sad denouement for one of the pioneers of televangelism, a man who, in the early 1980s, seemed poised to pull the then-declasse Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, which emphasize gifts of the Holy Spirit such as healing and speaking in tongues, into the mainstream. Says Randall Balmer, chair of the religion department at Barnard College, who has written about Roberts, "I feel badly for him. This must be a blow."

What happened? J. Lee Grady, the editor of the magazine Charisma, wrote recently that, "I don't know about you, but I'm having flashbacks of 1987," the year that the sexploits of Jimmy Swaggart and financial hijinks of Jim Bakker gave televangelism its reputation for sleaze. But while the allegations in the suit certainly meet Swaggart-quality standards of salaciousness, the causes of the university's fall may owe more to mismanagement than greed or negligence, suggests John Schmalzbauer, an expert in Christian higher education at Missouri State University.