Todd Rhodes:
TV Evangelist Rod Parsley (from my home state of Columbus) is asking for a financial miracle before December 31. Rod is asking people to "help me take back what the devil stole?" The appeal said that there was a $3 million dollar deficit even after cutting the budget 30% during the year.
This isn't a big story. I mean, a lot of TV evangelists make big pleas for funds. They have for years.
What is interesting in this story, according to the Columbus Dispatch, is that Parsley's church settled for $3.1 million this year with a family whose son was spanked at its day-care center in 2006, to the point his buttocks and legs were covered with welts and abrasions.
According to a statement by the church: "The decision imposed against us earlier this year has made our circumstances more serious." I'm sure it did.
But if this $3 million is the same $3 million that Parsley is asking for because the devil stole it from them... that sure makes for a different scenario.
(If I was a betting man, I would guess that the $3 million was an insurance claim against the church rather than coming straight from the church coffers).
Here's my read: the day of the big TV evangelists is over. It could be that the $3 million dollars wasn't actually stolen by Satan. It could be that people are waking up and finding that their money is better when not placed in the hands of a TV evangelist.
2 comments:
Mate, bold post - but needed! Good work brother! like your work!
Is there something about being on television that causes preachers' doctrine to morph into a diatribe of empty promises and shallow exegesis; or rather, is it the same virus that infects their theology that also compels them to buy television broadcast airtime from local stations?
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