Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
preying on the bank account of one of his own followers
Preying on the bank accounts of ALL of his followers is his literal job as a prosperity gospel preacher.
How fucking stupid and greedy do you have to be if your job is LEGALLY bilking people for millions of dollars and you STILL can't help doing it illegally too?! 🤦
Isn't that the job of every religious leader? To get their parishioners to give up their money? Christianity has it built right in with the 10% tithe.
Yeah it is, but prosperity gospel preachers turn that dial up to 1100/10 compared to your local spiritual grifter with even a thin veneer of legitimacy.
Prosperity gospel says that money is a sign of Gid's favor, so by writing a check to a televangelist you will be paid back exponentially in time. The central pillar is literally that if i give Joel Osteen $100 a week, i will eventually earn double that throuh God's favor. Meanwhile televangelists are just pocketing that money to pay for private jets, massive mansions, and massive TV deals to sucker in more followers.
Regular tithing goes towards paying for church upkeep, missionary and community work, and anything else the church needs to keep running.
Regular tithing goes towards paying for church upkeep, missionary and community work, and anything else the church needs to keep running.
Sometimes, maybe. Plenty of pastors that are not part of the Prosperity Gospel movement drive very nice cars and wear very expensive clothing.
I get that, but the local priest or pastor isn't holding service in a former basketball arena with giant piles of cash hidden in the walls,or selling doomsday kits to preppers or has a private airport in his estate where he keeps a fleet of private jets. It's not even comparable to a local priest or pastor that drives a BMW or buys his wife a designer handbag every year for Christmas. Televangelist prosperity gospel preachers spend more in a year than your local Bishop will make in his entire life.
There is a lot you can criticize any religious organization for, but i do believe that most people who join the church originally did so out of piety and devotion to the faith before being corrupted by the power that comes with the position. Prosperity gospel is the opposite, where conmen realize they can openly grift the poor and desperate tax free. Say what you will about the Catholic Church and their willingness to cover up heinous crimes that their clergy commit, but the archbishop or Cardinal will definitely investigate and take action if they findout a bishop or priest has been embezzling funds from their congregation, and your local diocese does a lot of community outreach that you probably aren't even aware of. Non-denominational megachurchs aren't running food kitchens, homeless shelters, or giving money to those in need. They exist solely to extract wealth from followers and fund the labish lifestyle of the church leader.
Your local denominational churchs aren't asking for money saying that god will pay it back tenfold eventually. They are upfront about what they are doing with the money and you should only give what you can afford because it is the right thing to do if you love the church. Weekly service at the local church is still important to a lot of people for lots of social reasons, and those churchs need money to be able to offer those services, which means tiths and donations are necessary. But even the most ostentatious Cathedral or Southern Baptist church will have sermons about the evil and corrupting influence of money.
It's supposed to pay reasonable bills and feed, clothes, shelter people and comfort prisoners, but you know...I think we should do that with tax dollars and mutual aid/donations but that's just me.
The subtle difference between praying and preying on their bank accounts.
Yeah. He's preying on the praying.
Now do every other prosperity gospel preacher
"They white, tho."- cops probably
Nah, a lot of them aren't. For example, they didn't charge Creflo Dollar with anything back when they pretended to investigate him and 5 other prosperity gospel con artists, most of whom were white, because those 6 were clever enough to only defraud people in ways allowed by the broken legal system.
Amazing, a literal church of the Dollar
I was about to say "only in America", but then I remembered that they've successfully exported the abominable practice to several African countries too, maybe other continents as well 🤬😮💨
Putting forth a lavish image while teaching about a book with a core message of selfless humble living should be a red flag. Not that he's the first by a long shot.
Jesus was a pinko hippie vagrant, what with his transience and homelessness, healing and feeding people for free and quest of all his forgiveness and turning the other cheek. He was also one heck of a magician, multiplying meager food supplies for a few into enough for 5k people and necromancy. I guess healing is magic, the way he did it, though.
Oh and on top of all that, he l didn't subjugate those of the feminine persuasion and performed most of his miracles for Palestinians, Syrians and other foreigners, crossing borders without legal documentation.
The Jesus of modern religion is just Mammon, in expensive cheap costume, caked on stage makeup and really good lighting.
Oh I know. Whenever I see a gaudy looking church I can't help but think, some mother fucker needs to flip some tables over in there.
Isn't their core message to do whatever they feel like, then repent just before death so sky daddy can take them to their special club?
It's not in the gospels, but an apostle later said faith without works* is dead. He probably said some abhorrent stuff too, but it's late and I'm too tired to think.
Good. He deserves to go there.
Praying/preying
Prophet/profit
Welcome to US religion 101
Pretty much anyone running a church is doing the same shit, no? He just got cocky about it, sounds like. Gotta at least pretend to be humble whilst grifting your flock
Also he wasn't white.