A Lutheran Point of View

In 1962, the U.S. United Lutheran Church Committee, consisting of physicians, ministers, and theologians, looked at what they called the “religious quackery” of some faith-healers. They summarized their findings: (1) [The faith-healers] blame any failure of the healing ceremony on the subject’s lack of faith. (2) They ignore any attempt at the use of scientific methodology in their work. (3) The motive is simply a desire for money and the personal power to exploit.

I believe this is an excellent brief summary of my own findings.

4

The Financial Aspects

Provide no gold, silver, or copper to fill your purse. (Matthew 10:9)

  The faith-healers are very much concerned with money. It is as large a concern to them as the healing process they are involved in. In fact, healer/evangelist A. A. Allen used to tell his audiences that, in many cases, poverty itself was a disease caused by specific demons. Needless to say, the preacher had discovered a solution to this demon infestation. It consisted of giving money to Allen, in large quantities and by whatever means could be managed. This also cured any vestigial poverty that Allen himself might have been suffering from, though that was not an obvious ailment with him, even to very astute observers. The amounts of money asked for and received by religious figures are enormous. Moreover, it is banked tax-free. The IRS has declared that all such money—except for the preacher’s declared personal income—is exempt from taxes. June Smallwood, an IRS exemptions officer, revealed that by IRS rules, churches do not even have to apply for recognition of their exemption. A church need not even file an annual information return, though some churches do so on a voluntary basis. The only requirement of the IRS is that the “main activity” of the exempted organization must be “running a church.” And—more interesting by far—when asked how the IRS would know if an organization’s major activity would meet that requirement, Smallwood replied: We wouldn’t actually know unless the church applied for exemption.

And, she added, there is no surveillance of organizations that claim religious tax exemptionwhere the organization does not come in for formal recognition.... It all boils down to a constitutional question.

The eminently sensible thing for churches to do, it seems, is to simply say nothing, do not pay taxes, and relax.

God as Terrorist

The accumulation of wealth by the faith-healers—and evangelists in general—would appear to be in direct opposition to the biblical admonition that specifically directs priests to eschew such mundane pleasures. But, as with any such inconvenient scriptural directive, the inventive preachers have found ways to circumvent criticism on this point. None has been so much in need of this rationalization as evangelist Oral Roberts, who recently made yet another dramatic appeal for funds that managed to get him rather wide attention. Roberts is very preoccupied with his own demise. (This strange condition is known as “thanatomania.”) He frequently announces to the faithful that God has spoken to him about his death, and he says that on more than one occasionI’ve asked [God] to take my life, and He won’t do that. And I apologize for that. I shouldn’t ask the Lord to take my life.

It appears that the idea of “seed-faith” giving was originated by the Reverend Gene Ewing, a man who has designed many such ideas for himself and other preachers. The system was first used seriously by Roberts, who suggests that by “planting” a financial “seed” offering, his followers will see their money multiplied—not by Oral, but by God—but only if the giver generates sufficient faith. A nonfalsifiable situation is thus generated, with some few donors getting lucky and attributing it to God. Others get unlucky and, accepting that God’s mind is unfathomable, attribute that to Him, too. The seed-faith system is currently popular among the TV gurus for extracting funds from the faithful. (See Appendix IV for a sample from Oral Roberts.) Even the language used by Brother Roberts to describe the process is invented to order. Contributors are told:God didn’t tell us to come to Him and he would put us in poverty. He said, “I’ll prosper you.” We’re not out to get your money, but we’re sure out to get your money increased. We’re sure out to get you prospered.

In earlier days, Roberts (or God, because Oral speaks for God) could afford to make colossal financial blunders while running his $500 million empire, and he (or He) did. Still, the operation flourished and grew fat. Inevitably, such success was noticed by less fortunate evangelists, and as a result Roberts inadvertently created his own competition. He showed other tent-show evangelists how the media and a cleverly constructed, carefully used mailing list could be put to work to attract money; and when those observers left their tents and put their own machines into operation, Roberts’s share of the charismatic pie suddenly shrank. Eyes brimming with tears, Reverend Roberts announced on January 4, 1987, to his vast TV audience that if he were unable to raise the remainder of what he said was a much-needed $8 million by the end of that March, God would call him to heaven before his time. Why he would need such a relatively small sum, in view of the immense wealth of his organization, we will never know. He easily could have raised most of that sum just by selling any of his homes in Beverly Hills, Tulsa, or Palm Springs, or by putting his Angus cattle up for auction. His son Robert might have held back on his purchase of the 7,100-square-foot mansion he was just then moving into. The two $600,000 winter homes Oral has in California might have been sold. There were so many ways. Immediate objections to this maneuver were heard from almost everyone in the business and from the media, who were finally becoming aware of what is known as “the Gimme Business.” Florida newspaper columnist Gary Stein, commenting on the brouhaha, suggested that if Roberts were not dead by March 31, the evangelist would meet the press the following day to tell them “April Fool!” The Tulsa Tribune, always a gadfly to Roberts, ran a headline that demanded, “Come off it, Oral!” then snorted, “The time has come to laugh,” and called his threat “emotional blackmail.” A number of TV stations announced that they were dropping the Roberts program. Others rebroadcast old Roberts videotapes rather than airing the outrageous appeal, and many warned him to cease his continual high-powered begging via their facilities. One brother evangelist, Pat Robertson, opined that God was not the sort to hold a person hostage against donations. Another called Roberts “a religious extortionist.” These comments may have been suggested by the then-current success of the Arab religious fanatics who had discovered the profitable business of snatching hostages for ransom. The parallel was not lost on the public, and might even have inspired Roberts—subconsciously—in the first place. This was hardly the first time Roberts had used this extortion ploy, though the media seemed to think it was. Eighteen months previously, he had sent out a mailing that told the faithful:For many days, God has been speaking to me. This time it means life or death for me. (Italics in original.)

He went on to say that if he didn’t have $8 million by July 1985,I won’t be on this earth much longer.... My life depends on what you do.... God has said to me that we must fulfill this vision or my life will be over.

Either God forgot about His threat, or He gave Oral an additional eight months to get up the cash before He would vaporize him with His celestial wrath. It reached a point where bookmakers in Las Vegas actually had “Oral’s Countdown to Death” listed on their betting rundown. Bets were placed on whether he would live to see April 1. Odds were highly in favor of his survival. But the Reverend Roberts had yet another dramatic episode with which to regale the media, hard on the heels of this latest death wish. He told his TV audience breathlessly (pun intended) how he had been awakened one night by Satan (not just any demon, but the top demon himself) sitting on his chest strangling him with both clawed hands. Said Oral:One night, the Devil came in my room—just a few nights ago—and I felt those hands on my throat, choking—trying to choke my life out of me. And I yelled for my wife, Evelyn, “Honey, come!” And Evelyn laid her hands upon me and rebuked the Devil and commanded him to get out of mah room. And I began to breathe, I came out of that bed and—strong in the Lord. Let me tell yuh, there’s nothing that can take yuh down when you have the power of God in yer life!

What had actually happened to Oral Roberts to produce this unlikely tale? Indigestion? Maybe his fears of impending death brought on a nightmare. Or perhaps the reverend gentleman was just testing—again—to see how big a whopper his audience would swallow. But has it occurred to him that he doesn’t have many friends in high—or low—places? When both God and Satan are trying to do you in, there’s a message in it somewhere. Besides, Oral had declared back in 1963 that he is thoroughly protected by God, at least in respect to infections:... In sixteen and one-half years of laying my hands upon hundreds of thousands of the most miserably ill people on earth, God has let none of their diseases come upon me, and that is a testimony of His being with us.

To those who have followed the strange meanderings of Roberts’s mind over the years, his tall tales are not surprising. The faithful are prepared, by the literature issued from the ministry, to accept these Munchhausenian yarns. In The Miracles of Christ, a book that serves as a primer on accepting the incredible, Roberts demotes reason and makes blind faith a Godly virtue:It requires faith to believe God can [perform a miracle] ... It takes faith because it goes against all human reasoning. It goes against everything our mind has been taught by Man’s reason.