I was listening to Bob Burney yesterday and he was quoting from an L.A. Times (registration req'd) expose on TBN. Now I am not a fan of the L.A. Times and doubt a lot of what they say, but this story rings pretty true to me based on what I have seen and what others have said about TBN.
Apparently the foudners of TBN's "ministry", Paul and Jan Crouch, live quite the lavish lifestyle. Now I don't mean he has a new car. I mean they live in 30 luxurious houses paid for by the faithful contribution of well-meaning poor folks who don't know a shyster when they see one. They fly in a private jet. They earn over $700,000 between the two of them. They operate at a huge multi-million surplus and yet still wail and beg for money during "Praise-a-thons".
Now I know that the servant is worthy of his hire. I don't begrudge anyone their salaries. I do object to what is an obvious abdication of responsibility and stewardship. I don't think there is even a little bit of Gospel basis for their lifestyle. I think they hoodwink poor old ladies out of their money and do so in the name of Christ Jesus. I can think of few things worse than using the Gospel to steal from the flock. Perhaps almost as badly, this gives ammunition to the opponents of the Gospel. "See how guillable these people are, no wonder they believe in fairy tales about a guy dying on a cross and being resurrected." The church does not need this sort of attention. We should be focusing on the Good News, not on snake oil salesmen who lie their way into riches.
The main problem is Biblical illiteracy. People who know little about His Word are easily swayed by ouot of context and mistranslations of the Bible, because they don't know better. There are a myriad of problems caused by this and only one sure solution: read it!
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