Letting viewers know what he REALLY thinks of them!
(Image by Google Images w/caption by Rev Dan) Details DMCA
It may be sinful to speak ill of the recently deceased, but if it is, then a
host of writers and journalists on religion are indeed very, very sinful
(including myself).
Paul Crouch was an inveterate con man who preyed upon the religiously gullible
for profit, and he (and his infamously cotton-candy-haired wife, Jan) showed
his contempt for his "flock" by openly living a life so garish, so
lavish, that Jesus would have wept when His name was intoned.
And He would have wept constantly for the last forty years.
But They Needed It ALL!
It was a scene that America thought it had left with the tragic soap opera of
Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker: over-the-top spending by ministry moguls frought
with sex scandals: Paul and Jan Crouch agonized over which of their many
mansions to live in at the same time. You see, they hadn't lived together for
years. They just sang together and swindled together - in the name of God.
But they needed those houses, the private jets - and even the 100k mobile home
for the dogs, you see, because they'd been given a mission from God to obtain
the most ridiculous accumulation of televangelist wealth in history.
Sarah
Posner (Religion Dispatches):
"Crouch built the network from one station in the 1970s to a global
empire featuring a 24-hour menu of health and wealth gospel, preying on the
gullible to turn their money over to televangelists to receive God's blessing.
"[Douglas] Wead, who developed an extensive list of influential evangelicals
with whom he wanted 1988 Bush presidential primary campaign to connect, had
first-hand knowledge of the Crouches' world. Yet he recognized the potential
downside of Bush being seen with Crouch, whom he described as an
"exaggeration of the most bizarre manifestation of the peculiar
evangelical subculture." He advised the vice-president not to appear for a
televised interview with Crouch. But he staged such an interview himself, using
the tagline "correspondent Doug Wead," coaxing Bush to exhibit his
faith in Jesus Christ for the TBN audience.
Hey, That Cotton Candy Do Costs A Lot!
The list of the Crouch family mega-mansions is too long to list here, but
suffice it to say that their total worth could feed Sierra Leone for a year.
Add to that TWO jets and salaries neighboring in the millions, well, you get
the picture. During most of his tenure at TBN, Paul Crouch sat on what looked
to the viewers to be a gold throne befitting an emperor of Christian
broadcasting.
And according to granddaughter, Brittany Koper (also TBN's former finance
director), the regal lifestyle extended to:
- Mr. and Mrs. Crouch have his-and-her mansions one street apart in a gated community here, provided by the network using viewer donations and tax-free earnings.
- Mrs. Crouch, 74, mostly lives in a large company house near Orlando, Fla., where she runs a side business, theHoly Land Experience theme park. Mr. Crouch, 78, has an adjacent home there too, but rarely visits. Its occupant is often a security guard who doubles as Mrs. Crouch's chauffeur."
- One $4m jet and another $48 jet.
- Matching homes for son Matt's children that included an indoor basketball court.
Besides the "outing" of his financial chicanery and
lavish overspending, Crouch had the ubiquitous scandal concerning sexual
harassment of a male TBN employee. It was "settled out of court" for
about $450k.
Ironically, the most notable "tributes" to Crouch after his passing
came from prosperity preachers and scam artists Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn as
well as "mega-ministry preachers" from all over the country.
He was, after all, their gold standard.
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