Televangelists

[BrianH]

They are televangelists (or in the case of Coughlin, radio, as TV was not in popular usage). They may or may not subscribe to prosperity theology, though many of them certainly do.

Which of these never ask for money (a love offering, sales of materials, etc)? I admit I have not heard all of them preach (though I have heard a great number of them over the years) but I have never encountered an evangelist who did not do so.

Billy Graham and Charles Stanley. I do not recall Van Impe either doing it, maybe at the end?

 

[Baraq]

Billy Graham and Charles Stanley. I do not recall Van Impe either doing it, maybe at the end?

Ive noticed the dispensational preachers(like Van Impe) on TBN will sell books, trips and videos. Benny Hinn will ask for faith money for healing prayers, others will have specific projects that they ask for monetary support and still others will have just a 20 second ask for support after a sermon. However, its the ‘name it and claim it’ ones like heisenberg noted that are out there. These people turn their WHOLE show into a telethon for miracles. Once Paula White dressed strangely (like a witches garment) and promised all kinds of grace for sowing a seed of $78(thats where I got the number for my joke) while drumming the crowd up like an expert shamanist.

Then the pure comedy is, a Dispensationalist like Hal Lindsey will come on TBN (arm n arm with the charlatans) and then claim that the Church in Rome is a false Church. In giving equal time, Karen is correct as many do it at different levels. Even ETWN ‘sells idols’(gives them for a donation) that are said have some sacramental value.

 

[heisenburg]

I don’t think quietly and in a non “Salvation or miracle” dependent way for asking for money is bad necessarily. To be honest, all of us do need to donate to our church. Churches that have book stores on the side (or Radio/TV stations) isnt really bad either. Nothing wrong with it. I’d much rather buy a Bible through my local Catholic Churches Books store, than go to a mainstream “Christian” book store that has Catholic bibles under the heading “occult”

Same goes for EWTN, and any other Radio/TV station selling things. As long as the focus isn’t even remotely on the selling its ok.

I’m am personally criticizing the those that either say donating is required for a salvation or miracle/salvation. And/or those that say if you pray the right way, god will give you all your worldly desires and a big house.

BrianH… I too agree that baptist (as well as many of the mainline denoms) will never modify their theology to incorporate that. But they are being affected on two levels.

1. Every mainline protestant denom is losing mass amounts of members to churches that teach this. No denom can say that it isnt effected.
2. The way services are held are being changed as well to ‘compete’ It use to be easy to find good conservative services that aren’t just feel good singing and no real message. Now, thats almost all you see everywhere. I know for a fact the baptist churches around here have fallen to that where it is 45 minutes of feel good happy go lucky, the pastor talks for 5 minutes about john 3:16 and then another song.

This is a problem that is effecting every denomination. and is effecting methods of worship as well…

anyway… Just soemthign to chew on

In Christ

 

[Singinbeauty]

This is a sad trend indeed. As a protestant my heart aches anytime I see this happening because the message of God and His sacrifice has been perverted and distorted. God never said that once you chose to follow Him life would get easier. Just look at all the Martyrs there have been! But yet there are people who will tell others that once you choose God He will make life hunky dorey and you will never suffer again!

There is a ‘pastor’ (I say that in quotes because he makes my skin crawl) here in the Northwest named Casey Treat and recently he and his wife have taken their ‘message’ to the tv around here. A friend of mine decided to try his church and asked me to come along. I had heard about his message and decided to go to see if it was as bad as they all said. It was. When I arrived I was just in time to see him arrive on his HELICOPTER and be driven to the door on a golf cart where a group of body guards were waiting to escort him inside. I was shocked and a little horrified! The idea of a pastor having a helicopter just annoys me for some reason. I was told that he had one because he preaches at another church and needs a fast way to get from one location to another. If thats the case then GET ANOTHER PASTOR TO TEACH AT ONE AND HAVE A LOCATION FOR YOU! The money for the helicopter could have been used for something so much better. When the service started it didn’t get better. He preceeded to tell everyone that if they came to follow Christ then all their money problems will be no more basically. I looked around me at the congregation and almost started crying right there. These poor souls who will be thinking that this is the answer and then will end up hating God for something they were promised by a low and dirty human. The sanctuary where we sat and he ‘taught’ was also a tragedy. There were HUGE banners on each side of the room that proclaimed how much money they had left to raise through offering to build another church in another location. Appalling! That kind of thing has no place in God’s building, at least not in the sanctuary.

And so I watched him do an alter call and tears welled in my eyes as there were more than a few people who came to Christ under a lie… I just HOPE that Christ has revealed Himself to these people and shows them the TRUTH. Life isn’t always easy but it is so much better under Christ’s Love… *sigh…

 

[Chris_LaRock]

It sounds like these guys are selling indulgences.

Funny you should say that, since I just though to myself - “Isn’t that the came corrupt, money grubbing stuff Luther was protesting?”

Ironic, huh?

 

[JoeyWarren]

It sounds like these guys are selling indulgences.

Oh my God! I had to leave my office and go outside and …I thought I was gonna have a heart attack with laughter. I had never looked at this way. You are 100% right. THEY ARE SELLING INDULGENCES!

 

[Chris_LaRock]

They want us to think that Jesus went to the cross so that we can be rich. Salvation and forgiveness of sins is hardly ever mentioned by these co-called preachers. It’s very disrespectful!

 

[happygal]

This is a sad trend indeed. As a protestant my heart aches anytime I see this happening because the message of God and His sacrifice has been perverted and distorted. God never said that once you chose to follow Him life would get easier. Just look at all the Martyrs there have been! But yet there are people who will tell others that once you choose God He will make life hunky dorey and you will never suffer again!

There is a ‘pastor’ (I say that in quotes because he makes my skin crawl) here in the Northwest named Casey Treat and recently he and his wife have taken their ‘message’ to the tv around here. A friend of mine decided to try his church and asked me to come along. I had heard about his message and decided to go to see if it was as bad as they all said. It was. When I arrived I was just in time to see him arrive on his HELICOPTER and be driven to the door on a golf cart where a group of body guards were waiting to escort him inside. I was shocked and a little horrified! The idea of a pastor having a helicopter just annoys me for some reason. I was told that he had one because he preaches at another church and needs a fast way to get from one location to another. If thats the case then GET ANOTHER PASTOR TO TEACH AT ONE AND HAVE A LOCATION FOR YOU! The money for the helicopter could have been used for something so much better. When the service started it didn’t get better. He preceeded to tell everyone that if they came to follow Christ then all their money problems will be no more basically. I looked around me at the congregation and almost started crying right there. These poor souls who will be thinking that this is the answer and then will end up hating God for something they were promised by a low and dirty human. The sanctuary where we sat and he ‘taught’ was also a tragedy. There were HUGE banners on each side of the room that proclaimed how much money they had left to raise through offering to build another church in another location. Appalling! That kind of thing has no place in God’s building, at least not in the sanctuary.

And so I watched him do an alter call and tears welled in my eyes as there were more than a few people who came to Christ under a lie… I just HOPE that Christ has revealed Himself to these people and shows them the TRUTH. Life isn’t always easy but it is so much better under Christ’s Love… *sigh…

**Mind your words, it make you no different from him, if you labelled him this way. You already give yourself up by the way you called upon others. What a sad sign **

 

[Singinbeauty]

**Mind your words, it make you no different from him, if you labelled him this way. You already give yourself up by the way you called upon others. What a sad sign **

From what you bolded and italicized I do have a response… *ahem… ready? I AM a low and dirty human… Why God hasn’t thrown me out with yesterday’s garbage yet is beyond me. So your ‘chastizing’ has no merit here. But thanx for jumping to conclusions and trying to make me humble…

But what I was trying to say, and you must have missed it by figuring I was trying to put this ‘pastor’ down, was that those people who went to that service and accepted God as their savior believing those false promises are in for a long road full of a lot of bumps. All I can do is pray that they turn to God and not grow angry at him because of the promises of a ‘low and dirty human’.

 

[RNRobert]

Oh my God! I had to leave my office and go outside and …I thought I was gonna have a heart attack with laughter. I had never looked at this way. You are 100% right. THEY ARE SELLING INDULGENCES!

The Indulgence promoted by Pope Leo X (which triggered Luther’s revolt) was to raise money to build St Peter’s basilica. John Cardinal Gibbons in Faith of Our Fathers quotes the Protestant historian D’Aubigne, who said, “In the Pope’s Bull something was said of the repentance of the heart and confession of the lips.” In other words, no amount of money given to the church will avail a person spiritually if his heart is not right with God.
Gibbons also wrote that when millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt gave a donation to a Methodist college, a Methodist minister said to him, “Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thy alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.” Gibbons dryly comments “The minister is more indulgent than even the Pope, to whom were given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven; for the minister declares Cornelius absolved without the preliminary of confession or contrition while even, according to D’Aubigne, the inflexible Pope insisted on the necessity of “repentance of the heart confession of the lips” before the donor’s offering could avail him of salvation.”

This is what ‘health-n-wealth’ gospel preachers are doing today- selling a spiritual benefit without the need for change of heart.