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THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL

TBN's Promise: Send Money and See Riches

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Hagin preached a four-part formula that he said he received in a vision from Jesus:

Say it. Do it. Receive it. Tell it.

First, believers must ask God for what they want. Next, they must demonstrate their faith through donations. Then they will tap into the "powerhouse of heaven" and receive their gifts. Finally, they must spread the news.

Most of today's leading televangelists preach some version of this creed.

Paul and Jan Crouch were brought up in the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination where the prosperity gospel flourishes. After working in ministries in South Dakota and Michigan, the couple moved to Southern California in 1961 to run an Assemblies of God TV production facility in Burbank.

They launched their own network in 1973. After two nights on the air on KBSA-TV Channel 46 in Santa Ana, they were broke. So the next night, they staged a telethon.

The phones hardly rang. Then Paul Crouch hit on an idea, he recalled in his autobiography, Hello World! He told Jan to announce on the air that an anonymous donor had promised to give $20,000 — on condition that viewers pledge the same amount that night.

The anonymous donor was Crouch, and the $20,000 was money the couple had already lent the network. If viewers came through with $20,000, they would forgo repayment of the loan.

By evening's end, viewers had phoned in $30,000 in pledges, enough to keep TBN on the air.

"Without really realizing it at the time, I had put into motion one of God's most powerful laws — the law of giving and receiving, sowing and reaping," Crouch wrote. "Thirty-, 60- and 100-fold blessing is, indeed, a glorious truth and blessing for those who will simply obey the word of the Lord!"

The prosperity gospel became the foundation of TBN fundraising. The Crouches and TBN personalities such as faith healer Benny Hinn present the doctrine with passion and a flair for the dramatic.

During fundraising "Praise-a-thons," the Crouches read testimonials from donors whose debts supposedly were miraculously forgiven — or who inexplicably received checks in the mail. They pray over donors' pledge cards.

In 2000, TBN televangelists told viewers that those who promised $2,000 would get the money back before the end of the year — and would find that their debts had been canceled. Later, donors were invited to send in loan statements and other debt paperwork. The documents were burned on a stone altar.

During another pitch, Crouch read on camera a letter he said was from a financially strapped viewer who had pledged $4,000.

According to Crouch, the donor wrote: "Within 15 minutes of that time, I received a check in the U.S. mail in the amount of $5,496.70. No explanation…. I know it's not an income tax return. I don't make enough money to file returns."

That year, in a fundraising letter to the network's "prayer partners," Crouch wrote: "Praise the Lord, the reports of awesome miracles of debts canceled and God's people coming out of debt continue to come in. God's economy of giving really works!"

What Windfall?

Most mainstream theologians and pastors say the prosperity gospel is at best a doctrinal error and at worst a con game. They point out that Jesus and his disciples abandoned their possessions in order to live a spiritually rich life.

"It is difficult to fathom how anyone familiar with the abundance of biblical teaching about the 'deceitfulness of riches' could have devised the prosperity gospel," said William Martin, a sociology professor at Rice University and author of a biography of Billy Graham.

"While the Bible does not condemn all wealth, it surely points to its dangers in numerous passages."

Critics of TBN say that the promise of financial miracles — besides being a distraction from the core principles of Christianity — can cause real harm.

Ole E. Anthony, founder of the Trinity Foundation in Dallas, a televangelist watchdog, said he knew people who had given the last of their savings to TV preachers, hoping for a windfall that never came.

Thomas D. Horne, of Williford, Ark., a disabled Vietnam-era veteran, said that in 1994 he was swept away by the rhetoric of TBN pastors and donated about $6,000 in disability benefits.

Time went by and he did not receive the promised surfeit of money. Last year, he found out that TBN had purchased a Newport Beach mansion overlooking the Pacific. He wrote to the network, asking for his money back.

"I want to recoup my hard-earned disability money I sent to these despicable people," said Horne. He said he has received no reply.

Philip McPeake is another donor for whom God's economy of giving did not deliver. Out of work and out of luck in November 1998, McPeake heard the Rev. R.W. Schambach make an impassioned plea for donations on TBN's Kansas City television station, KTAJ.

Schambach promised that if viewers sent $200 as a down payment on a $2,000 pledge, God would give them the rest within 90 days — with a bonus to follow.

McPeake sent in his money and waited for his luck to change. When it didn't, he complained to the Missouri state attorney general's office and the Federal Communications Commission. TBN refunded his donation.

Carl Geisendorfer, who runs a low-power Christian television station in Quincy, Ill., offered TBN programming for 19 years — until, he said, he grew disgusted by the televangelists' financial appeals.

He said he pulled TBN off the air in 2002 after watching a preacher tell viewers that they should pledge $2,000 — even if they didn't have it — in order to receive a financial miracle from God.