Big Fundamentalism Digs In

Two months ago, Republican Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, decided it was time to look into America's mega-churches with a view to finding out how much of all those tax-free millions is finding its way into the pockets of the pastors.

He began with six churches. From AlterNet.Org:

- Benny Hinn, a TV preacher who runs the World Healing Center Church in Grapevine, Texas. Hinn, who travels the globe conducting faith-healing revivals, lives in a seven-bathroom, eight-bedroom mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean valued at $10 million. It is claimed as a parsonage.
- The Rev. Creflo Dollar's World Changers Church International in College Park, Ga. Dollar drives a Rolls Royce and has large homes in Georgia and New York. He is asked to provide a list of all vehicles provided for himself, his wife, board members and ministry employees.
- Paula and Randy White's Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla. In a letter to the ministry, Grassley asks the couple to provide a list of expense account items "including, but not limited to, clothing expenses and any cosmetic surgery for years 2004 to present."
- Joyce Meyer Ministries in Fenton, Mo. Grassley asks Meyer and her husband David to explain expenditures like a $23,000 commode with a marble top, a $30,000 conference table, an $11,000 French clock and a $19,000 pair of vases for the ministry headquarters.
- Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, Texas. Copeland is asked to explain how cash offerings are handled during overseas crusades and to explain the use of a ministry jet for "layovers" in Maui, Fiji and Honolulu.
- Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. Among other things, Long is asked to explain a church official's 2005 claim that Long no longer accepts a salary from the church but does take a "love offering."

What led Grassley to take this step? "The six ministries that received letters from me were chosen based upon reported allegations of wrongdoing reported by investigative journalists and brought to my attention by interested third parties, sometimes acting as whistleblowers. Some of the accounts were disturbing because of the lack of transparency regarding how these ministries spend millions of dollars, and as an industry, billions of dollars that have been exempt from federal tax."

Not surprisingly, the Iowa senator isn't getting the co-operation he'd hoped for:

"The ministries were generally cagey in their replies. Hinn said he had referred the matter to his attorneys, an approach that Dollar, the Whites and Meyer also took. Copeland refused to talk to the media. Some also began complaining of government interference.
"Are we saying the First Amendment is null and void by allowing this to happen?" Dollar asked in the Journal-Constitution.

Long, in brief remarks before his congregation Nov. 11, called the Grassley request "an attack on our religious freedom and privacy rights."

As of Crassley's deadline of December 6, only Copeland and Meyer submitted information, but some evangelists are warning that it's unwise to place too much faith in financial statements.

"Ole Anthony, head of the Texas-based Trinity Foundation, an evangelical group that for years has spoken out against the excesses of television evangelists, told Church & State that these statements do not guarantee accountability.

"The public has no idea," Anthony said. "The ministries say we have an audited financial statement. But it's a very friendly auditor." In the case of many mega-ministries, Anthony said, church accounting is "woefully lacking."

Added Anthony, "I wish the legitimate church would demand that there be some accountability. These [mega-church] organizations, for the most part their accountability is a relative or just yes men - and if anyone disagrees with them, they're touching the anointed of God or some other B.S."

Douglas Laycock, an expert on church-state relations who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School, said tax exemption does not mean that religious groups surrender their constitutional rights. But, he added, government must have the power to investigate allegations of fraud.

"As I understand it, the allegations here are that money is being diverted from the exempt charitable purpose to the personal benefit of individuals," Laycock told Church & State. "That is simply tax fraud, if done knowingly. The government has to be able to police that; otherwise, tax exemptions would be so easily abused it couldn't grant them to anybody."

Ah the plot thickens.

"If the investigation deepens, the Trinity Foundation's Anthony is hoping it becomes an opportunity for changing the status quo. He said his group supports laws similar to those in England, where any claim made over the air for the purpose of raising money must be verifiable.

"For 20 years I've been hoping that the leaders of the legitimate church would stand up and say, 'this is enough,' but they haven't," Anthony said. "It breaks my heart that we have to do this but no one else will."