My thoughts on the Prosperity Pimps

(I am a Maronite Catholic, just so you understand I am trashing the preachers, not Christianity).

Turn on TBN, or Trinity Broadcast Network, just about any given day at just about any given time, or BET on a Sunday night after 9 PM EST, and you'll see the lowest of the low. Men and women who call themselves Ministers turning Christianity into "Get Rich -- Here's How."

They'll tell you you HAVE TO give 10% of your gross income to their Church or God won't bless you.

They'll tell you to believe for "a harvest." I've even seen Pastor Rod Parsley on tv talking about the Hebrew word "Shmoneh" means eight and that if you give $800 or $8000, then the word "Shmoneh" sounds to him like "Some money." In others words, you'll get some money.

And whatever you give to their church, God will give you 10 fold.

Yet there are quite a few members of these churches who give and give and do as are told but never end "blessed" with material wealth for all their contributions and sacrifice.

Christianity is not a religion of using God to get rich here on earth. But that's what people like Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, and Creflo Dollar are turning it into.

YES, God will bless you with that which you ask for, even if it's some money. Jesus says in Matthew 7:7-11 -- "Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?"

But Jesus also says a chapter before that, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroys, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." Matthew 6:19-21

But storing up treasures on Earth seems very much to be what Kenneth Copeland has done. Just look online at google images for his 18,000 square foot mansion. Or his "ministry's" 4 private jets. Which by the way he was caught by Senate Committee using for hunting/fishing in Colorado, and a layover in Hawaii which lasted more than one day.

And he's just one example. Joyce Meyer has an annual conference for women every September in St Louis. It averages about 20,000 women every year. Now, according to Pastor Manning, each woman on average will spend about $3000 for airline travel, rental car, outfit, meals, motel room, etc. And that's even before they give an offering to her ministry at the conference. If Pastor Manning's math is right, that's $60 MILLION BEFORE they give an offering in the collection. Even if he's way off, and it were $30 Million, that's still a lot of money. Pastor Manning's challenge to her is to call it off just for one year and to use the money you would have used for that conference and go to a battered women shelter and give them new bras, clothes, doctors office visit, take them out to a meal at a nice restaurant. And on top of all this, Joyce Meyer has two conferences per month every month.

I agree with Pastor Manning.

Yes, I want middle class people to be better off financially, own real estate, have money in the bank, etc. I do want that for myself too.

But when you turn CHristianity into "God wants you to be rich" is borderline evil.

Personally, I'd like to ask a question to Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, John Hagee, Joel Osteen (whom I actually like), and Creflo Dollar: What business do you have taking a salary from your congregations when you're already loaded rich???