The Bible is full of teaching that condemns teachers who use the gospel to line their own pockets. These so-called teachers are ungodly (Jude 4) and false teachers, among other things. The good news of God’s grace–a gace that frees sinners from the judgment and condemnation of a holy and righteous God through the death of his Son–is twisted to the advantage of the false teacher. The Word of God reveals what truly motivates the ungoldly: their own sensuality (Jude 4). They are driven by their own craven desires and, as a result, pervert God’s grace.

How do false teachers pervert God’s grace? (1) By teaching that Christ’s death on the cross was insufficient and that something more is required to gain God’s favor and (2) By teaching that our walk with God is about earthly success here and now rather than the way of suffering. It is a monstrous perversion of what Jesus and the apostles repeatedly taught. By the standards of these false teachers (their standard being the accumulation of material wealth and earthly power), the biggest losers are Jesus and the apostles who lived and died penniless!

I regularly encounter decent Christians who are being bamboozled by these shysters because they are dazzled by the shysters’ worldly success (as if money and power were the standard by which we should measure their message). These ordinary Christians regard themselves as failures because they don’t own BMWs and live in mansions. They doubt their salvation, thus their effectiveness to do good works–for which they were redeemed–is seriously undercut.

The false teachers are peddling the American Dream, not the gospel. The two are incompatible. ‘And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever’ (1 John 2.17).

Moreover, their success at attracting $200 million a
year in contributions, indicates they are successfully
serving a market for their services. Lastly, their
ability to “put away” 29% of their revenue,
demonstrates responsible stewardship of their
resources. (General Motors can’t even put away one
percent. And the USGovernment, with thousands of CPAs on their
payroll, are $11 Trillion in DEBT.)

The Crouches are the kind of people we need in
Government, but never get.

Instead of beating up on them, for being successful,
we should install them in Sacramento. Kick out
Schwarzendoodle and the Doodlers, the Trough-Feeders
and Entitlement Queens who live off STOLEN money, let
the Crouches run the government with VOLUNTARY income.
If they can raise 30% MORE than they need, without
violating anyone’s rights, they could, for the first
time in history, bring morality to government.

The religious messages expounded on TBN vary widely. I
suspect that the Crouches don’t personally believe
EVERYTHING broadcast on their own airwaves, which
tells me, they are a generous and tolerant people who
believe in the 1st Amendment. That would also be an
improvement in Government.

If someone wants to smear the Crouches and make it
stick, they’ve got to show that TBN’s success was
achieved through dishonest or devious means, that they
used government for benefits and favors extracted from
others, and that they exploit their employees and
suppliers. Can anybody do that?

Otherwise, from here, it looks to me like the Crouches
live the life they preach, and have never hurt anybody
intentionally.

We could use a lot more Crouches in this troubled
nation, and a lot fewer Bushes, Cheneys, Bernankes,
Mukaseys, Roves, Boxers, Feinsteins, Rohrabachers, and
other mistakes of Nature.

Now for a direct address to the 80 previous Commenters on this story: Wake up, people. Pay attention to the subject under discussion. Teri Sforza’s story was about the ECONOMICS of TBN, NOT its correctness of faith or presentation of Biblical “truths.” Yet nearly all of the critics here have criticized the Crouch’s religious beliefs, as if you could look inside their minds and determine their motivations. As one Wise Person once said, Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.

Don Hull
Costa Mesa