Religious Robbers

Gary: Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Sacramento Bee, August 13, 2006 with the headline, “Religion Related Fraud Getting Worse.” The following are excerpts:

“Randall W. Harding sang in the choir at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, CA, and donated part of his conspicuous wealth to its ministries. In his business dealings, he underscored his faith by naming his investment firm JTL, or ‘Just the Lord.’ Pastors and churchgoers alike entrusted their money to him. By the time Harding was unmasked as a fraud, he and his partners had stolen more than 50 million dollars from their clients, and Crossroads became yet another cautionary tale in what investigators say is a worsening problem plaguing the nation’s churches. 

“Between 1984 and 1989, about 450 million dollars was stolen in religion related scams, the association says. In its latest count, from 1998 to 2001 the total had risen to 2 billion dollars. Rip-offs have only become more common since. 

“Lambert Vander Tuig, a member of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA ran a real estate scam that built investors out of 50 million dollars, the Securities and Exchange Commission says. His salesmen presented themselves as faithful Christians and distributed copies of The Purpose Driven Life by Saddleback pastor Rick Warren, according to the SEC. Warren and his church had no knowledge of Vander Tuig’s activities, says the SEC. 

“And in a dramatically broader scam, leaders of Greater Ministries International based in Tampa, FL defrauded thousands of people of half a billion dollars by promising to double money on investments that ministry officials said were blessed by God. ‘Typically, a con artist will target the pastor first by making a generous donation and appealing to the ministers desire to expand the church or its programs,’ according to Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, who played a key role in breaking up the Greater Ministries scam. ‘If the pastor invests, churchgoers view it as a tacit endorsement.’”

Tom: You know, Dave, these con artists, and obviously they’re big time—we’re talking about billions of dollars—but you’d think they’d get their ideas or, in terms of a group to go after, by watching much of Christian TV, especially where you have the prosperity teachers and so on. They can see greed right there, and people trying to make more. And when you put it in the context of “this is God blessing,” they’re going to have a field day!

Dave: Tom, it seems that people who call themselves Christians, profess to be Christians, are very naïve. Of course, they would have to be. Non-Christians looking at Benny Hinn or Copeland or these guys on TV—wow. They know they’re frauds. Oral Roberts? Oh my goodness! But Christians invested, what, $240 million, something like that, or much more, even, in his bogus hospital that, well, had a fraction—about one-third occupied at its best. It went bankrupt. But…

Tom: And then he went for an appeal and said, “Well, if I don’t get this much money, God is going to take me home!” 

Dave: Eight million, yeah. 

Tom: And what happened?

Dave: Yeah…

Tom: The money came forward!

Dave: Tom, in the year that the City of Hope, that church, went bankrupt, Oral Roberts was voted, I forget the exact terminology, but the “most successful Christian leader” in the country, or maybe in the world. 

Tom: Yeah, who brought us “seed faith.”

Dave: Yeah.

Tom: What a con job.

Dave: But, Tom, this is a tragedy, and part of it is, you know, if this would work on non-Christians, also, it doesn’t tell us how much they lose. Probably far more in scams, because it’s like…Tom, you’re a fisherman. And you know what it’s like, boy, the next one is gonna be the big one! And so you just keep fishing to somehow, you’ve got a vision of that big one you’re gonna get. Yeah, so everybody would like to double their money or triple their money. It’s something they want to believe, because it’s greed. It’s the greed on the part of Christians.

Tom: But, Dave, if God’s involved, talk about baiting the hook here!

Dave: Sure, yeah! But it’s greed that drives this thing, first of all. And they’re willing to believe anything.

Tom: So, Dave, what’s the antidote to this? We’re concerned about this. We’re not just taking these people to task. We know anybody could be subject to this, depending on how something is presented to them. But we’ve been seeing (not just in this area but in many areas) Christians aren’t thinking today. They’re not thinking doctrinally, and they’re not thinking biblically. They’re going with the more experiential side of Christianity, okay, if you could say that. No, there is an experiential side. That’s true. But they’re pushing the envelope, I think.

Dave: Well, first of all, Tom, making many has nothing to do with Christianity. God has not promised to make us rich. Now, he might bless our investment or our work, our efforts, and He certainly has done that with many believing Christians. But when someone promises you they’re going to double your money in a short while, that’s a red flag right there. You better check this out carefully. “Yeah, I don’t want to check it out, because I’m afraid if I do, I might find out it’s not right and I want to believe this!” That is an attitude that we can have, because our hearts are deceitful.

And, Tom, I don’t know how you get rid of these faxes that come in. On my machine almost every day there’s a fax from this company or that—oh, they’ve got a terrific stock, a low-price stock, and they’ve got all the reasons why it’s going to…forget it! And I try—I call the number to get rid of this, and they just keep coming!

So anyway, it’s something that—who was it, Barnum?

Tom: P. T. Barnum.

Dave: P. T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And you just play to their desires, they’re willing to believe anything! That’s how they worked all these side shows and so forth.

Tom: So people need to be, if they call themselves Christians, they need to be thoughtful. They need to think these things through, and be diligent in checking things out. We encourage people with regard to the Scriptures to search the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so. You need to do that in every aspect of your life, especially when it comes to being a good steward of what God has provided for you.

Dave: And there are plenty of resources out there to check things out financially.