3/22/2021 Preachers and their $5,000 sneakers: Why one man started an Instagram account showing churches’ wealth, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey
Ben Kirby wondered the church’s pastor, Steven Furtick, one of the most popular preachers in the country, could afford a new designer outfit nearly every week?
With a friend’s encouragement, Kirby started a new Instagram account @PreachersNSneakers posting screenshots of pastors next to price tags and the street value of shoes they were wearing. Within a month, the account had attracted 100,000 followers.
On his feed, Kirby has showcased Seattle pastor Judah Smith’s $3,600 Gucci jacket, Dallas pastor T.D. Jakes’s $1,250 Louboutin fanny pack and Miami pastor Guillermo Maldonado’s $2,541 Ricci crocodile belt. And he considers Paula White, President Donald Trump’s most trusted pastoral adviser who is often photographed in designer items, a PreachersNSneakers “content goldmine,” posting a photo of her wearing $785 Stella McCartney sneakers.
Preachersnsneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and (Wannabe) Celebrities by Ben Kirby
11/2/2021 Christian radio host sentenced to 3 life terms for Ponzi scheme that took millions from senior citizens, by Sky Palma, DEADState
As CBS News points out, Gallagher and group advertised on Christian radio and promoted his group in books, such as “Jesus Christ, Money Master,” and on Christian radio broadcasts.
11/2/2021 Christian Radio Host William Neil “Doc” Gallagher gets three life sentences for plucking Christian Radio's well groomed suckers, by David Matthews, Daily News
According to prosecutors Gallagher reportedly stole more than $29 million over more than four years before authorities caught up to him in early 2019.
“See you in church on Sunday” was The Money Doctor's slogan.
11/2/2021 U.S. missionaries have long tried to convert the ‘unreached’ in the Amazon. Now Indigenous groups are fighting back, by By Terrence McCoy, The Washington Post
Stout, wavy-haired and chain-smoking, Marubo is the first Indigenous lawyer to have come out of the Javari Valley. The only legal representative for its peoples, he last year filed on their behalf what is believed to be the first lawsuit by an Indigenous group aimed at expelling Christian missionaries from their territory. A victory could set a legal precedent, further restricting access to isolated groups and reducing the historic role American evangelists have played in the forest.
10/31/2021 Are Conservative Christians the Real ‘Secularists’ Now? By Ed Kilgore, Intelligencer / New York Magazine
There is growing evidence that America’s conservative believers need to look in the mirror to see the most pervasive “secularist” threat. In their passionate embrace of cultural and political counterrevolution, many conservative Christians are now more addicted to power, and to entirely secular goals that confuse traditional culture with holiness, than their allegedly infidel enemies are. This development is most evident in the religious cult of Donald Trump, the heathenish and hate-filled political warlord whose own values are about as antithetical to those of the Prince of Peace as one can imagine.
10/13/2021
9/30/2021 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem won’t use Trump ally Corey Lewandowski as advisor after reports of affair, sexual harassment, by Dan Mangan, CNBC
Noem’s cold shoulder to Lewandowski came a day after she denied a report that she has been having an extramarital affair with the controversial political operative.
9/29/2021 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with former Trump adviser, by Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
“There are members of Congress close to Mar-a-Lago who have called the affair ‘an open secret’ and worried that about Noem’s viability as a national candidate and within the movement,” a source familiar with the matter told American Greatness.
Noem has recently come under scrutiny for a meeting she organized for her daughter and the state employee charged with leading the agency that moved to deny her application to become a certified real estate appraiser. The meeting prompted allegations of abuse of power among some state lawmakers, and South Dakota’s attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, is reviewing the matter.
9/30/2021 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem severs ties with longtime Trump aide after harassment allegations, by Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey, WaPost
9/23/2021 Evangelical pastor to his followers: Jesus hasn’t come back because you haven’t given me enough money, by Sky Palma, DeadState
… If people would call this number and put this victory all over the world, every available voice, every available outlet, God the Father would say, ‘Jesus, go get ’em.’ Because, you see, he wants to see us as much as we want to see him. … And so what is hindering all these things is because people are not doing in the financial realm — because we’re living in an economic world — what God’s called them to do.”
9/20/2021 The For-Profit World of Religious Vaccine Exemptions, BY MARY HARRIS, Slate
7/12/2021
7/10/2021 Monroe-area family loses appeal in lawsuit over priest’s funeral remarks on suicide, Associated Press, Detroit News
Mourners were shocked when the Rev. Don LaCuesta gave a critical sermon. He said suicide was a “secular crime” and a “sin against God with dire eternal consequences.”
7/2/2021 Boy Scouts of America reaches $850M agreement with victims, by RANDALL CHASE, AP
The Boy Scouts of America have reached an $850 million agreement with attorneys representing some 60,000 victims of child sex abuse in what could prove to be a pivotal moment in the organization’s bankruptcy case.
5/25/2021 Jim Bakker: ‘Cancel culture’ is the reason I went to prison, by Sky Palma, DeadState
End Times prepper pastor Jim Bakker claims that "cancel culture" was responsible for him being unjustly convicted of fraud and sent to prison in the 1980s.
https://t.co/A0uEnnliJG pic.twitter.com/qgXDvPnJ6g
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch)
5/14/2021 Our Fellow Evangelicals Need to Get Vaccinated, by Curtis Chang and Kris Carter, The New York Times
The pathway to ending the Covid-19 pandemic runs through the evangelical church. Tens of millions of evangelical Christians live in the United States, and almost half of white evangelicals surveyed have said they are reluctant to get vaccinated against Covid. For many outside the evangelical world, this resistance seems incomprehensible. But as lifelong evangelicals, we understand why this is happening, and we worry that our community is obstructing recovery from the pandemic.
The decision to get vaccinated is essentially a decision to trust institutions. Many people do not understand the vaccines’ scientific complexities, regardless of religion. That means getting immunized is a decision to trust “them” — the constellation of scientific and government institutions offering assurances that the vaccines are safe and effective.
But American evangelicals are historically prone to ambivalence toward dominant secular institutions. In fact, a posture of critical evaluation is built into the fabric of our faith. Evangelicals interpret Jesus’ teaching that his followers are in the world but not “of the world” (John 17:16) to mean we should engage with secular institutions with a certain measure of wariness. Some amount of caution is healthy for all communities, not just for evangelicals. No institution is infallible, and critical thinking can be a civic virtue.
Unfortunately, in recent years, the evangelical approach to engaging with secular institutions has morphed from caution into outright fear and hostility. Three forces have exploited this inherent ambivalence toward secular institutions. First, conservative media has mastered the art of sowing evangelical suspicion of the establishment to increase ratings. Second, politicians — some Christian and some not — have used evangelicals’ distrust of so-called elite institutions to gain our votes. Third, conspiracy movements such as QAnon and antivaccine campaigns have targeted evangelicals, conjuring fictional enemies intent on destroying our values and, in the case of the vaccines, our actual bodies. All of these forces shape how large segments of the evangelical community perceive the Covid vaccines.
In our vaccination outreach, evangelicals have told us they’re suspicious of the shots for a variety of reasons. Many worry that the development process was rushed, that the vaccines contain a microchip or that they are the “the mark of the beast,” a reference from the Book of Revelation that some Christians associate with a future Antichrist figure. A sharpened distrust of institutions underlies these fears.
This reflex has taken root so rapidly that a gap has emerged between evangelical pastors and the people in their pews. A survey from the National Association of Evangelicals showed that 95 percent of church leaders would be vaccinated, a marked contrast to the mere 54 percent of evangelicals who planned to get a vaccination. This gap follows a documented trend of pastors feeling afraid to speak on public issues because they might alienate some portion of their members.
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5/5/2021 Spiritual Warfare: A Battle Is Raging in the ‘Prophetic Community’ Over the 2020 Election, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
In the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, a variety of self-proclaimed “prophets” were nearly unanimous in their announcements that they had all heard from Heaven that Donald Trump would win the election and serve a second term as president.
Even though that did not happen, many of these “prophets” have vehemently refused to admit they were wrong and continue to insist that God will vindicate them by miraculously returning Trump to the White House.
Concerned about these false prophecies and the refusal of such “prophets” to acknowledge them, a collection of conservative Christian leaders recently signed on to a document laying out standards for the prophetic movement, declaring, among other things, that those who refuse to abide by such standards run the risk of being designated as “false prophets.”
4/30/2021 Detroit Church Militant founder may face legal reckoning for defamation, by Christopher White, National Catholic Reporter
Voris' targeting of de Laire centers around his handling of a canonical matter that involved a traditionalist organization in his diocese known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary* of St. Benedict Center.
The group was formed after its founder, former Jesuit priest Leonard Feeney, was excommunicated by the Vatican in 1953 for his belief that only those baptized in the Catholic Church could receive salvation. The group as it operates today has since been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for preaching "anti-Semitic hatred."
The diocese had forbidden the community of the St. Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, to present themselves as an official Catholic institution, while at the same time allowing a priest to provide ministry to the group. According to the Diocese of Manchester's website, the group "manipulated" this "to imply support or recognition by the Church."
Church Militant has also been banned from presenting itself as a Catholic entity. Under its previous iteration, the organization, which operates in the Detroit suburbs, used to be known as Real Catholic TV. In December 2011, the Detroit Archdiocese said "it does not regard them as being authorized to use the word 'Catholic' to identify or promote their public activities."
4/30/2021 Support of Trump within church has driven some Catholics to the exits, by Rebecca Bratten Weiss, National Catholic Reporter
Boyle's departure from the Catholic Church is part of a broader trend, as church membership among Catholics has declined sharply in recent decades, especially over the past 10 years. Many who have left, like Boyle, cite their coreligionists' alliance with the MAGA "Make America Great Again" movement as a key factor in their decision.
H.L. Vogl came from a conservative background and converted enthusiastically to Catholicism as an adult. But in 2016, Vogl was dismayed to see their pastor becoming far more political — and it got worse after Donald Trump was elected president. According to Vogl, their pastor was "explicitly citing Fox News in homilies, preaching on the obligation to respect those in authority in the government, and stoking fear of 'political correctness.' "
Vogl began fact-checking the pastor's homilies, and in the process also discovered falsehoods and misrepresentations that had previously been accepted without question, such as the misrepresentation of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute.
Vogl was also appalled by the church's lack of accountability, and the harshness with which the authorities silence anyone working for gender equality.
Others have been dismayed by the spectacle of prominent Catholics they once respected embracing Donald Trump's far-right nationalist ideology and substituting it for the traditional teachings of the church. This has been especially distressing for converts to witness, as they watch those who once influenced their conversion veer sharply to the right.
Josh Duggar, whose family became the subject of a TLC reality show in 2008, was charged with receiving and possessing child pornography in Arkansas on Friday. The material allegedly depicted the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12.
Duggar, 33, was featured in a reality show on the TLC network with his family called “19 Kids and Counting” that ran from 2008 and 2015. The show chronicled the lives of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 19 children, of which Duggar was the eldest, and often centered around the family’s religious beliefs as devout Baptists.
What evangelicals are hearing from some pastors about Covid-19, Brianna Keilar, CNN
4/17/2021 Why Anti-Abortion Catholics Should Get Vaccinated, by Leah Libresco Sargeant, The New York Times
Although the Vatican has stated clearly that the vaccines approved in the United States are “morally licit” to receive, some Catholics are reluctant because these vaccines have been developed or tested using lab-replicated cells cultured from aborted fetuses.
Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, sent a letter to his diocese that read, “I urge you to reject any vaccine that uses the remains of aborted children in research, testing, development, or production.” On social media, the vaccine selfies I see are interspersed with friends sharing Bishop Strickland’s and other prelates’ exhortations and grieving over their friends’ willingness to compromise with what they see as evil. Vaccine-hesitant Catholics are reluctant to accept protection from viral contagion at the risk of moral taint.
blah blah blah
4/16/2021 Liberty Sues Jerry Falwell Jr. For Millions In Damages Over Granda Episode, by Josh Kovensky, MuckRaker
The evangelical institution claims in the suit, filed in Lynchburg Circuit Court in Virginia, that Falwell concealed his relationship with Giancarlo Granda from the university. Liberty cites both a lawsuit that Falwell filed against Liberty in November 2020 and a statement that the evangelical scion issued to the Washington Examiner before Reuters broke the news in August 2020 that Granda had a relationship with Falwell’s wife as the son of the famous preacher allegedly looked on.
4/16/2021 The full text of Liberty University's lawsuit against Jerry Falwell, save71.org
- @save71LU on twitter
4/14/2021 Falwell’s son out as VP at Liberty University, by Brandon Ambrosino and Michael Stratford, Politico
Liberty University spokesperson Scott Lamb on Wednesday confirmed to POLITICO that Trey Falwell was “no longer employed by the university.” That development, Lamb said, occurred “this week,” but he declined to provide any additional details about what happened. Lamb also declined to answer questions about whether Jerry Falwell Jr.’s other son, Wesley, or his daughters-in-law were currently employed by the university. Liberty “does not answer questions about personnel,” he said.
His departure follows closely on the heels of another university shake-up. Last week, David Nasser, longtime campus pastor, resigned. He was replaced with Jonathan Falwell, Jerry’s brother and pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, founded by their father.
4/13/2021 Pastor’s son becomes viral star for debunking evangelical thinking on TikTok, by Gustaf Kilander, The Independent
Arguing that it’s weird for kids to read the Bible, Mr Piper said: “While other kids are learning to read with comics or whatever normal parents have around the house, here fundie [fundamentalist] kids are, 6, 7, 8 years old, devouring stories of Jezebel being defenestrated and then eaten by dogs.”
He added that the Bible is “basically Game of Thrones except if you don’t read it, you go to hell.”
Copeland: Too bad about your crushed lives. Keep those Direct Deposits Coming.
3/30/2020: Kenneth Copeland and his Assistant Parasite "Casting Out Coronavirus."
In this clip, Inside Edition Reporter Lisa Guerrero confronted MegaChurcher Kenneth Copland's 3 private jets (and about his $700M+ fortune)
The threat in Copeland's huge hands and body language wasn't subtle. It's easy to imagine Copeland intimidating his congregants.
Why Do These Televangelists Need Expensive Jets? Inside Edition
GrifterMan Jim Bakker, Selling Silver Colloid Snake Oil, "Just Like Jesus"
3/24/2021 Jim Bakker Decries ‘Warfare’ That Has Forced Him to Stop Lying About His Silver Solution, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
Earlier this month, End Times pastor Jim Bakker was ordered by various state and federal agencies to stop suggesting that a silver solution sold by his network could be used as a possible cure for the COVID-19 coronavirus after Right Wing Watch posted a clip in February from “The Jim Bakker Show” in which he and his guests made precisely that claim.
Bakker addressed the controversy on Tuesday’s episode of his program by insisting that the claims made on his program were not misleading and complaining that the attacks against him were demonic warfare, while petulantly announcing that he was suspending the sale of his silver solution because of them.
4/17/2020 How To Be a Prophet the Jim Bakker Way, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
At the time, we noted that Bakker’s “prophecy” was so vague that if anything happened anywhere in the world, Bakker would immediately claim it to be the fulfillment of his prophecy. And that is exactly what Bakker is now doing, as he used his show yesterday to claim that the coronavirus was the judgment that he had foreseen and foretold.
Bakker said that he had to re-watch his own sermon because he didn’t even remember what he said since he was “under the anointing” of God when he delivered it, adding that he was shocked by how accurate it was.
4/14/2020 Desperate Times For Jim Bakker, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
End Times pastor Jim Bakker closed out his television program today by begging viewers to financially support his ministry using checks, as his network has reportedly been unable to process credit card transactions ever since it came under fire for promoting the silver solution it sold could possibly kill the coronavirus and heal those who have been infected.
3/10/2020 Missouri AG Sues Jim Bakker Over Fake Coronavirus Cure, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
3/5/2020 New York AG Orders Jim Bakker to ‘Cease and Desist’ Making Misleading Claims That His Silver Solution Kills the Coronavirus, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
10/3/2019 Jim Bakker: The Left Is Under ‘Massive Demon Possession’, by Kyle Mantyla, RIght Wing Watch
“I want to tell you people today, America has gone crazy,” Bakker said. “I believe much of politics today, especially those that have gone out on an extreme—I’ll say left, they are way left—I believe there is a massive demon possession in the political realm today.”
Bakker’s guest, pastor and author Rick Renner, readily agreed.
“I believe it,” Renner said. “It’s like Hell found a voice. Hell is speaking through the political system today and through the media. It is amazing what is happening to the media, it is just wicked what is taking place. It should not be permitted. I think about Jesus; Jesus told the demons to shut up and I think we need to take authority over all these voices and command them to be still, in Jesus’ name.”
3/7/2019 Jim Bakker Warns That ‘Civil War Is Coming to America’ by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
11/14/2017 Jim Bakker: Apache Helicopters Are Mentioned In The Bible, by Kyle Mantyla, Right Wing Watch
For instance, Bakker said, people who have studied the Bible will realize that Apache helicopters were mentioned in Revelation 9:
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
“Everything in the Bible is not a fairy tale,” Bakker said. “It’s all things that you can learn [if you study] … Do you know the Apache helicopter, I think, is in the Bible. John the Revelator saw it, he heard it, he saw it, it’s there. It said it had a face of a man; look in the helicopter, there’s the face of a man. It had a blue breastplate; it’s there. It’s so easy to understand the revelation if you read it.”
2/3/2017 Jim Bakker: Trump Protesters Are ‘Demon-Possessed’, by Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
Bakker told evangelist Billye Brim that he encountered “four rotten little girls” demonstrating against Trump during the president’s inauguration, asserting: “It was a possession, it’s the demons.”
“What’s happening is we’ve had leaders who have opened our country to demon powers,” he said. “They have worked for the dark side, the other side. We have millions of demon-possessed people in this country now.”
Brim agreed that demons were behind such anti-Trump protests such as the Women’s March on Washington and urged viewers to pray for confusion in their ranks.
2/2/2017 Bakker: Trump Hotel Looked Like Heaven, by Brian Tashman, RIght Wing Watch
“If God builds ballrooms, it’s going to be nicer than Trump’s, I know, but I tell you what, it looks like heaven to me,” he said, adding that “the spirit of God came in” to the city for Trump’s inauguration.
1/31/2017 Jim Bakker Guest Says Women Marchers Were Possessed By Demons, By Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
Bakker described Trump’s inauguration in glowing terms, saying that he felt “the presence of God” in Washington. But he and his guest, evangelist Billye Brim, railed against the subsequent Women’s March on Washington, which Brim said was “driven by demons.”
Upon seeing the Women’s March, Bakker said, he suddenly felt “the most evil spirit I’ve ever felt.”
Bakker was particularly offended that march participants used “dirty” and “filthy” words like “nasty” and “pussy”—words that the protesters pulled directly from the now-president, including from the infamous tape of him boasting about sexually assaulting women.
Brim said that the Women’s March was dominated by “the kingdom of darkness” and urged residents of Washington to “control those demons that were in those women.”
1/24/2017 Jim Bakker: Trump’s Critics Look ‘Demon-Possessed’ By Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
Today, televangelist Jim Bakker once again declared that Donald Trump’s election as president was a victory for God and the church, even going so far as to tell his guest, End Times radio host Rick Wiles, that the new president’s many critics appear to be possessed by demons.
“Have you ever looked into the eyes of some of these people?” he asked, criticizing Trump’s “mean” detractors from both sides of the aisle. “I’m telling you, there are some people that I’m concerned are demon-possessed. They’re just going crazy. Their eyes look like demons [are] coming out of them. I’m scared.”
Wiles said Trump victory blocked Satan’s attempt to drive the U.S. into another world war, while Bakker said that “there’s a warfare in the heavenlies” and “the great battle of the Antichrist” has already arrived.
12/29/2016 Bakker: Forces Of Hell Oppose Donald Trump Because He Stands For ‘Righteousness’ By Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
All hell is against this presidency,” Bakker said, because Trump stands for “righteousness.”
Bakker went on to falsely claim that the United Kingdom has legalized “three-person marriage” and “so they’re going to take parts, stuff from three people; so three people now can get married, pretty soon you’ll be able to marry a baboon.”
11/30/2015 Jim Bakker Blames Witches For Televangelists’ Scandals, By Isabel Carter-Kahn, Right Wing Watch
This week on “The Jim Bakker Show,” Jim Bakker recounted a story that “a very well-known man of God” told him after he was released from prison about the threats facing televangelists. According to Bakker, this man sat next to a self-proclaimed witch on an airplane who told him that her coven was going to “take down” Jim Bakker.
“She said, ‘Right now, all the witches … They’re all agreeing they’re going to destroy the television ministries and we’re starting with Jim Bakker. And we are all praying, praying to destroy him,’” Bakker said.
Bakker’s guest, End Times radio host Rick Wiles, chimed in to mention a former Satanist named John Ramirez, who he says “targeted the pastors and the ministers that were really preaching the word of God.” Bakker added that these practices are why you see pastors “going through troubles,” because “all the demons in hell brought whatever, whether it be sex, drugs, or women” with them to attack godly preachers.
8/12/2015 Jim Bakker: America Is Descending Into Cannibalism, by Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
While speaking with fellow End Times preacher Rick Wiles about the potential return of an Ice Age, Bakker urged viewers to stock up on food before it becomes scarce and America descends into violence.
“New York, Chicago, all of your big cities, will be Hell,” Bakker said. “The gangs will take what they want. They will kill to take what they want. Then then they will start eating bodies of the people they kill.”
1/5/2015 God Came To Jim Bakker In The Bath To Tell Him That He’s Punishing America For Abortion Rights, by Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch
On New Year’s Day, televangelist Jim Bakker informed viewers of his show about what God has in store for America in 2015, including increased tensions with North Korea and violence from Islamist extremists, something that no one else could have predicted.
He warned, however, that the U.S. military will fail to ever win a war because Americans are “mocking God, taking God out of schools, making it legal to murder the babies, [taking] the Ten Commandments down and literally denying the word of God.”
Bakker also told his audience that he received divine revelations while he was taking a bath.
