http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-tbn19sep19,1,2144480.story
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
September 19, 2004
Pastor Paul Crouch looked into the camera and told his flock that Trinity
Broadcasting Network needed $8 million to spread the Gospel throughout India
and save 1 billion souls from damnation.
Crouch, head of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, said even
viewers who couldn't afford a $1,000 pledge should take a "step of
faith" and make one anyway. The Lord would repay them many times over, he
said.
"Do you think God would have any trouble getting $1,000 extra to you
somehow?" he asked during a "Praise-a-thon" broadcast from
Trinity's studios in Costa Mesa.
The network's "prayer partners" came through once again, phoning in
enough pledges in one evening to put Christian programming on 8,700 television
stations across India.
TBN was not short on cash. In fact, it could have paid for the India expansion
out of the interest on its investment portfolio. But at TBN, the appeals for
money never stop. Nor does the flow of contributions.
Over the last 31 years, Crouch and his wife, Jan, have parlayed their viewers'
small expressions of faith into a worldwide broadcasting empire and a life
of luxury.
The network, little known outside fundamentalist Christian circles, was
buffeted by unwanted publicity last week, when The Times reported that Crouch
had paid a former employee $425,000 to keep silent about an alleged homosexual
tryst.
But millions of people needed no introduction to TBN. Its 24-hour-a-day menu
of sermons, faith healing, inspirational movies and Christian talk shows
reaches viewers around the globe via satellite, cable and broadcast stations.
Its programs are dubbed in 11 different languages.
In the U.S. alone, TBN is watched by more than 5 million households each week,
more than its three main competitors combined. Its signature offering,
"Praise the Lord," has as many prime-time viewers as Chris Matthews'
"Hardball" on MSNBC remarkable for a faith network.
Televangelists who once dominated the field, such as Pat Robertson, now air
their shows on TBN.
Much as Ted Turner did for TV news, the Crouches have created a global
infrastructure for religious broadcasting. But that is just one element in
their success. Another is a doctrine called the "prosperity gospel,"
which promises worshipers that God will shower them with material blessings if
they sacrifice to spread His word.
This theme that viewers will be rewarded, even enriched, for donating
pervades TBN programming.
"When you give to God," Crouch said during a typical appeal for
funds, "you're simply loaning to the Lord and He gives it right on
back."
Though it carries no advertising, the network generates more than $170 million
a year in revenue, tax filings show. Viewer contributions account for
two-thirds of that money.
Lower-income, rural Americans in the South are among TBN's most faithful
donors. The network says that 70% of its contributions are in amounts less
than $50.
Those small gifts underwrite a lifestyle that most of the ministry's
supporters can only dream about.
Paul, 70, collects a $403,700 salary as TBN's chairman and president. Jan, 67,
is paid $361,000 as vice president and director of programming. Those are the
highest salaries paid by any of the 12 major religious nonprofits whose
finances are tracked by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
TBN's "prayer partners" pay for a variety of perquisites as well.
The Crouches travel the world in a $7.2-million, 19-seat Canadair Turbojet
owned by TBN. They drive luxury cars. They have charged expensive dinners and
furniture to TBN credit cards.
Thirty ministry-owned homes are at their disposal including a pair of
Newport Beach mansions, a mountain retreat near Lake Arrowhead and a ranch in
Texas.
The Crouches' family members share in the benefits. Their oldest son, Paul
Jr., earns $90,800 a year as TBN's vice president for administration. Another
son, Matthew, has received $32 million from the network since 1999 to produce
Christian-themed movies such as "The Omega Code."
Overseeing these expenditures is a board of directors that consists of Paul
Crouch, Jan Crouch and Paul's 74-year-old sister, Ruth Brown. Control resides
primarily with Paul. In a 2001 legal deposition, Jan said she did not know she
was a corporate officer and could not recall the last board meeting she
attended.
TBN's declared mission as a tax-exempt Christian charity is to produce and
broadcast television shows and movies "for the purpose of spreading the
Gospel to the world."
Supporters' tax-deductible donations fund the ministry's worldwide television
network and keep it growing. Expansion is an overriding goal. Televised
appeals seek money for new transmitters, more satellite time and fresh cable
deals to bring God's word to an ever-larger audience.
As more people hear the Crouches' message, more are inspired to send
donations. That pays for further expansion, which brings more viewers and
more donations.
The formula has proved extraordinarily successful. While other religious
broadcasters have struggled, TBN has posted surpluses averaging nearly $60
million a year since 1997. Its balance sheet for 2002, the most recent
available, lists net assets of $583 million, including $238 million in
Treasury bonds and other government securities and $31 million in cash. It has
400 employees across the country.
Such figures have prompted questions about why the network continues to plead
for contributions. Wall Watchers, a nonprofit group in Charlotte, N.C., that
monitors religious ministries, has urged Christian donors to stop writing
checks to TBN.
"They have more money than they need," said Wall Watchers chairman
Howard "Rusty" Leonard, a former investment manager for the
Templeton mutual fund group. "There's nothing like this. It's over the
top."
The Crouches declined to be interviewed for this article. Through TBN
officials, they said the ministry keeps raising money so it can avoid going
into debt as it pays for TV stations, satellite time and other ways to spread
the Gospel.
Regarding the Crouches' salaries, the ministry said that during the network's
first 21 years, Paul was paid less than $40,000 a year on average and Jan less
than $35,000. The couple accepted higher compensation only in the last decade,
as they approached retirement, officials said. Their current salaries were
determined by independent compensation experts hired by the ministry's
accounting firm, TBN said.
Devoted viewers say the Crouches have nothing to apologize for. Indeed, the
ministry's material success is part of its appeal to believers proof that
the Crouches enjoy God's favor.
"The fruit of God is on their life," said Tennille Lowe, a computer
analyst in Phoenix City, Ala., who is in her 20s and watches the network every
day. "If they weren't prospering, I'd say, 'Wait a minute. I don't see
any evidence [of God's blessing] in their life.' "
The most visible evidence of the Crouches' success is Trinity Christian City
International in Costa Mesa, a striking white wedding cake of a building
surrounded by reflecting pools, sculptures and neoclassical colonnades.
Visitors to the complex, alongside the San Diego Freeway, can attend live
studio broadcasts, buy TBN-branded clothing and stroll down a re-creation of
Via Dolorosa, the street in Jerusalem where Jesus walked to his crucifixion.
In a high-tech 50-seat theater, people watch biblical movies in seats that
tremble during the quakes, storms and other disasters recounted in the
Scriptures.
The ministry owns a similar complex near Dallas and a Christian entertainment
center outside Nashville.
But most TBN devotees will never visit those places. They connect with the
network through its television programs, which provide a spiritual lifeline
for millions. Many of these viewers worship in their living rooms. TBN
preachers are their pastors.
"I don't go to church
. I turn the TV on and it's right there,"
said Sherry Peters, a bookkeeper in Mississippi. "Sometimes I will watch
it for weeks on end, every day."
Olivia Foster, 52, of Westminster, sends the network $70 a month out of her
$820 disability check.
"Without TBN, I wouldn't be here," said Foster, who lives alone and
suffers from AIDS. "That's the Gospel truth. It gave me purpose that God
could use me. I watch it 18 hours a day."
A Ham-Radio Start
Paul Crouch is the son of Pentacostal missionaries. Raised in Missouri, he
took an interest in broadcasting at 12, when a friend introduced him to ham
radio. By 15, he was a licensed operator. In a high school essay, he wrote
that he "would one day use this invention of shortwave radio to send the
Gospel around the world," according to his autobiography, "Hello
World!"
At the Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Mo., Crouch and fellow students
wired the campus for low-wattage radio and broadcast Gospel messages.
After graduation, Crouch stayed in Springfield and went to work for the
Assemblies of God, a branch of Pentacostalism whose rituals include faith
healing and speaking in tongues. His job was to maintain a film library. At
the time the early 1950s many Protestant denominations were
experimenting with movies and television as tools to win converts and teach
the faithful.
During a visit to Rapid City, S.D., in 1956, Crouch was smitten by "a
slight 98-pound angel" in a red dress, he later recalled. This was Jan
Bethany, daughter of a leading Assemblies of God pastor.
The two married a year later and eventually settled in Rapid City, where
Crouch became an associate pastor of his brother-in-law's church. In 1961, the
Crouches left to run the Assemblies of God's new broadcast production facility
in Burbank.
Twelve years later, the Crouches went out on their own, renting air time on
KBSA-TV Channel 46 in Santa Ana. TBN's first studio set included pieces of
furniture from the Crouches' bedroom, with a shower curtain as a backdrop.
The televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, then friends of the couple,
moved from Michigan to help with the fledgling network and lived with the
Crouches for a time.
The partnership didn't last long. In his autobiography, Crouch says that Jim
Bakker tried to take over the network, but failed. The Bakkers then left for
South Carolina and started their own TV ministry, which was a huge success
before it was wrecked by scandal in 1987. Bakker admitted to an affair with a
secretary and was later convicted of defrauding followers who invested in a
religious retreat.
TBN, meanwhile, was quietly broadening its reach with help from the
Almighty, by Crouch's account. During the network's first day on the air, God
moved a mountain so a clear broadcast signal could reach an antenna atop Mt.
Wilson, Crouch wrote in his autobiography.
"And we will ever know that it was not just a spiritual mountain this
was a real dirt, rock and tree mountain!"
In its early days, TBN delivered programming through a web of UHF and
low-power stations. Then, as the cable industry developed, Crouch bought time
on systems across the country.
One evening in 1975, he was inspired to embrace a new technology. Crouch wrote
that he was sitting in the den of his Newport Beach home when God projected a
map of the U.S. on the ceiling. Beams of light struck major population
centers, then spread throughout the country.
"I sat there transfixed by what I was seeing as I cried out to God to
show me what all this meant," Crouch wrote. "As I waited upon the
Lord, He spoke a ringing, resounding word to my spirit 'Satellite!' "
While other televangelists concentrated on developing programs, Crouch built
an unmatched distribution system. TBN outlasted or eclipsed its rivals and now
leads all faith networks in revenue and viewership.
Today, the ministry and its subsidiaries own 23 full-power stations in the
U.S. including KTBN Channel 40 in Santa Ana and 252 low-power stations
serving rural areas.
Overseas, the network owns interests in stations in El Salvador, Spain and
Kenya. Contracts with cable and satellite companies and station owners further
extend its reach.
All-told, TBN airs on more than 6,000 stations in 75 countries,
including places as remote as Rarotonga in the Cook Islands and Mbabane,
Swaziland. Its programs are also available over the Internet.
To serve this diverse audience, translators at the network's International
Production Center in Irving, Texas, dub programs into Spanish, Afrikaans,
Portuguese, Hebrew, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese.
A typical day of TBN programming includes health and lifestyle shows, Bible
study, religious movies and late-night Christian rock videos. Pentecostal
pastors espouse the prosperity gospel and offer prophecies about the Second
Coming of Jesus.
Mainstream evangelists such as Robertson, Billy Graham and Robert H. Schuller
appear on the network. Some lease their air time. Such payments bring in more
than $35 million a year, nearly one-fifth of TBN's revenue. So many preachers
want air time that the network keeps a waiting list.
The most popular offering is "Praise the Lord," a nightly, two-hour
mix of talk, prayer and music. The Crouches and a revolving cast of guest
hosts hold forth on a set decorated with stained-glass windows, chandeliers,
imitation French antiques and a gold-painted piano.
With his silver hair, mustache and bifocals, Paul Crouch comes across as a
grandfatherly sort. What he calls his "German temper" can rise
quickly, however. He often punctuates a point by shaking a finger at the
camera.
"Get out of God's way," he said once, referring to TBN's detractors.
"Quit blocking God's bridges or God is going to shoot you, if I
don't."
Jan Crouch wears heavy makeup, long false lashes and champagne-colored wigs
piled high on her head. She speaks in a sing-song voice and lets tears flow
freely, whether reading a viewer's letter or recalling how God resurrected her
pet chicken when she was a child.
She and Paul project the image of a happily married couple. But off the air,
they lead separate lives and rarely stay under the same roof, according to
former TBN employees and others who have spent time with the couple.
The Crouches also present themselves as thrifty and budget-conscious. During
one telethon, Paul said his personal $50,000 donation to TBN had wiped out the
family checking account. He often says that he and his wife live in the same
Newport Beach tract house they bought 33 years ago for $38,500.
But nowadays, neither of the Crouches uses that home much. Whether in Southern
California or on the road, they live in a variety of other TBN-owned homes. In
all, the network owns 30 residences in California, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio
all paid for in cash, property records show.
These include two Newport Beach mansions in a gated community overlooking the
Pacific. One of them was recently on the market for an asking price of $8
million. A real estate advertisement said it featured "11,000 square feet
of opulent European luxury with regulation tennis courts and a rambling
terraced hillside orchard with view of the blue Pacific."
In Costa Mesa, the ministry owns 11 homes in a gated development adjacent to
Trinity Christian City International.
In Sky Forest, a resort community in the San Bernardino National Forest, the
network owns a four-bedroom, five-bath home.
TBN officials say the real estate purchases were consistent with the network's
charitable mission, because the homes serve as venues for broadcasts and
provide lodging for the Crouches and fellow televangelists as they travel
across the country. The properties have also been good investments, they said.
From 1994 to 1996, TBN spent $13.7 million to acquire Twitty City, a tourist
attraction on the former Nashville-area estate of country singer Conway Twitty,
along with some adjacent property. After extensive renovations, the site
reopened as Trinity Music City USA, a Christian entertainment park with TV
studios, a church, a concert hall and a movie theater.
The amenities include a pair of condominiums for the Crouches. One is
furnished in Paul's taste, the other in Jan's, former employees said.
In Colleyville, Texas, near the network's International Production Center, TBN
owns nine homes on 66 acres along a country road, a spread called Shiloh
Ranch. Six horses graze in a pasture; TBN officials say they were gifts from
admirers.
Paul and Jan visit from time to time, and TBN occasionally broadcasts
specials from the ranch.
Ministry officials say that a Christian drug treatment program also uses the
property, but former employees say the program left years ago and Colleyville
officials say there is no permit for such an operation.
A Passion for Antiques
Wherever they happen to be staying, the Crouches indulge expensive tastes
courtesy of TBN donors, former employees say.
Kelly Whitmore, a former personal assistant to Jan Crouch, said in interviews
with The Times that she used a TBN American Express card to make numerous
personal purchases for Jan and Paul, including groceries, clothes, cosmetics,
alcohol and a tanning bed.
Whitmore, 43, who lives outside Nashville, worked at TBN from 1992 to 1997. On
the air, Jan once called her "my right arm."
TBN officials now describe her as a disgruntled ex-employee whose word cannot
be trusted. Whitmore acknowledged that she has hired an agent and hopes to
sell her story to TV or film producers.
Whitmore and another former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said Jan Crouch's special passion was antiques.
Credit card receipts show that in December 1994, TBN bought about 40 items
from Cool Springs Antiques in Brentwood, Tenn., including a three-piece wine
cabinet for $10,000, a $2,800 candelabrum, a $350 birdbath and a seven-piece
bedroom suite that cost $3,995.
At Harris Antiques and Imports in Forth Worth, Texas, TBN spent $32,851 in a
single day in 1995. The purchases included two French chests for about $1,900
each, a $1,650 brass planter and a $1,095 bronze urn.
TBN officials said the items were reproductions, not antiques, and were used
to furnish studio sets and network-owned houses. They said the tanning bed was
used to darken the skin of 25 actors cast in TBN stage productions set in
Biblical times.
Whitmore said she regularly used ministry money and a network-owned van to
stock the bars in Paul's and Jan's separate condominiums at Trinity Music
City.
Whitmore said the Crouches directed her to make the purchases at a store
called Frugal McDougal, hoping it would not be recognizable on credit-card
statements as a liquor store.
Credit card receipts also offer a glimpse of the Crouches' dining habits. In
Nashville in the mid-1990s, Paul Crouch hosted dinners with TBN employees in a
private room of Mario's, an upscale Italian restaurant, spending $180 or more
per person for parties of up to a dozen, the receipts show.
A former top TBN official described heavy consumption of wine and liquor at a
dozen such dinners. The ex-official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a
fear of retaliation.
"I have no problem with people drinking," the former official said,
"but I have a problem drinking with [prayer] partners' money."
In separate interviews, Whitmore, the former TBN official and a third person
who traveled and socialized with ministry leaders said that at the end of a
dinner, Paul Crouch would sometimes hold up a TBN credit card and say:
"Thank you, little partners!"
In a statement, ministry officials said that if Crouch thanked donors, it was
"a sincere gesture and remembrance of true thanks."
They also said it was appropriate for TBN to pay for dinners at which network
business was conducted. When network credit cards were used to pay for
personal expenses or for alcohol, the Crouches or other TBN officials
reimbursed the ministry, they said.
Unending Appeals
TBN never stops raising money. All that varies is the method.
The network appeals directly for cash during weeklong
"Praise-a-thons" held twice a year, in the spring and fall. The
approach is not subtle. The Crouches suggest that "Praise the Lord"
will go dark if viewers don't send money.
No mention is made of the ministry's flush finances.
"The question is: Shall we keep this great, live, prime-time 'Praise the
Lord' program on the air for another year?" Paul Crouch asked during last
November's telethon. "It's really up to you."
Jan, from a studio in Atlanta, added: "Oh, dear friends, come on. We've
got to keep 'Praise the Lord' on the air."
Viewers pledge a total of $90 million during a typical
"Praise-a-thon." TBN says it collects about half the money promised.
During the rest of the year, the ministry keeps donations flowing by less
intrusive means.
Except during "Praise-a-Thons," pastors appearing on the network can
solicit donations only during the last 30 seconds of a half-hour show or the
last 60 seconds of a one-hour show. TBN executives call this "the 11th
Commandment."
But the network's toll-free "prayer line" is always visible at the
bottom of the TV screen, bringing a steady stream of calls from people
troubled by debts, illnesses and other problems.
The calls are answered by paid and volunteer "prayer warriors" in a
cluster of drab two-story buildings in a Tustin office park.
The workers, Bibles at the ready, write down callers' requests for
healings, financial relief, mended marriages, jobs and pray with them on
the phone. TBN officials say the prayer requests are then taken to a chapel on
the premises and prayed over.
While they have callers on the phone, the volunteers ask for their names and
addresses. Later, the information is entered into a direct-mail database, one
of Trinity's most powerful fundraising tools.
If the sumptuous Costa Mesa complex with its biblical murals and reflecting
pools is TBN's spiritual heart, the Tustin complex is its financial nerve
center.
Workers there deal with a daily avalanche of mail from around the world
poems, prayers, testimonials and donations in a variety of currencies. With
surveillance cameras overhead, employees process the mail in an
assembly-line-like operation, separating donations from prayer requests. The
Spartan dιcor and brisk pace suggest a bank processing center.
In an adjoining room, employees enter the letter writers' names and addresses
into the direct-mail database, which has 1.2 million names. An in-house
printing and mailing operation generates thousands of letters a day asking the
faithful to give.
Sheryl Silva of Anaheim is among those who do. She says the network has been a
source of strength during difficult times, including a period of homelessness.
"I love to give whenever I can at least $15 per month," said
Silva, 46, who has glaucoma and gets by on a monthly disability check of about
$900. "I give because I don't want them to go off the air. They might be
the only thing good on TV that day."
Three Days in Iraq
Just as the fundraising never ceases, TBN's efforts to widen its audience
are unending.
In recent years, the network has focused on winning viewers in the former
Soviet-bloc countries, the Middle East and Asia. Crouch is negotiating with
Chinese officials to make TBN available in hotels, embassies, foreign
residential compounds and churches.
Earlier this year, the network converted to a digital signal, enabling it to
deliver three spinoff channels through the same pipeline that carries TBN.
The Spanish-language channel Enlace USA serves the growing evangelical
audience in Central and South America. JC-TV offers youth-oriented Christian
programs. The Church Channel broadcasts church services.
In March, Crouch made a three-day trip to Iraq, where his son Matt filmed him
giving a satellite receiver to an Iraqi pastor. Crouch handed $10,000 in cash
to another Iraqi clergyman to buy receivers for churches and individuals who
wanted to watch TBN.
In a fundraising letter, Crouch said that while he was in the war zone, God
granted him another miracle.
"I honestly believe that Matt and I, with our small group, were made
invisible to the barriers, checkpoints, armed guards, military infrastructure
and enemies all around us!" he wrote. "Supernatural favor was our
portion as we moved effortlessly through the war-torn and suffering city of
Baghdad."
Then he asked his followers for their support.
"Will you help us help them? I know you will!"
Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this
report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/yahoo/la-me-tbn20sep20,1,3772231.story
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
September 20, 2004
Pastor Paul Crouch calls it "God's economy of giving," and here is
how it works:
People who donate to Crouch's Trinity Broadcasting Network will reap financial
blessings from a grateful God. The more they give TBN, the more he will give
them.
Being broke or in debt is no excuse not to write a check. In fact, it's an
ideal opportunity. For God is especially generous to those who give when they
can least afford it.
"He'll give you thousands, hundreds of thousands," Crouch told his
viewers during a telethon last November. "He'll give millions and
billions of dollars."
Preachers who pass the hat while praising the Lord have long been the stuff of
ridicule in film and fiction. But for Crouch and his Orange County-based
television ministry, God's economy of giving is no laughing matter. It brings
a rich bounty, year after year.
Crouch has used a doctrine called the "prosperity gospel" to
underwrite a worldwide broadcasting network and a life of luxury for himself
and his family.
For at least a century, preachers have plied the notion that dropping money in
the collection plate will bring blessings from God material as well as
spiritual. But Crouch, through inspired salesmanship and advanced
telecommunications technology, has converted this timeworn creed into a potent
financial engine.
TBN collects more than $120 million a year from viewers of its Christian
programming more than any other TV ministry. Those donations have fueled
its rise from a rented studio in Santa Ana to a global broadcasting system
whose programs appear on thousands of channels via satellite, cable and
over-the-air broadcasts in a dozen languages.
The network's donors also help fund generous salaries for Crouch ($403,700 a
year) and his wife, Jan ($361,000), and an array of perks, including a TBN-owned
jet and 30 homes across the country, among them a pair of Newport Beach
mansions and a ranch in Texas.
The prosperity gospel is rooted in the idea that God wants Christians to
prosper and that believers have the right to ask him for financial gifts. TBN
has woven this notion into its round-the-clock programming as well as the
thousands of fund-raising letters it mails every day.
During one telethon, Crouch, 70, told viewers that if they did their part to
advance the Kingdom of God such as by donating money to TBN they
should not be shy about asking God for a reward.
"If my heart really, honestly desires a nice Cadillac
would there be
something terribly wrong with me saying, 'Lord, it is the desire of my heart
to have a nice car
and I'll use it for your glory?' " Crouch asked.
"I think I could do that and in time, as I walked in obedience with God,
I believe I'd have it."
Other preachers who appear on the network offer variations on the theme that
God appreciates wealth and likes to share it. One of them, John Avanzini, once
told viewers that Jesus, despite his humble image, was a man of means.
"John 19 tells us that Jesus wore designer clothes," Avanzini said,
referring to the purple robe that Christ's tormentors wrapped around him
before the Crucifixion. "I mean, you didn't get the stuff he wore off the
rack
. No, this was custom stuff. It was the kind of garment that kings and
rich merchants wore."
TBN viewers are told that if they don't reap a windfall despite their
donations, they must be doing something to "block God's blessing"
most likely, not giving enough.
Crouch has particularly stern words for those who are not giving at all.
"If you have been healed or saved or blessed through TBN and have not
contributed
you are robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven,"
he said during a 1997 telecast.
A central element of the prosperity gospel is that no one is too poor or too
indebted to donate. Bishop Clarence McClendon, a preacher whose show
"Take It By Force" appears on TBN, told viewers in March that God
had asked him to deliver a message to those in financial difficulty:
They should "sow a seed" by using their credit cards to make
donations. In return, the Lord would see to it that the balances would be paid
off within 30 days.
"Get Jesus on that credit card!" McClendon said.
Ask and Receive
Proponents of the prosperity gospel also known as the "name it
and claim it" gospel and the "health and wealth" gospel
point to a verse in the Hebrew Scriptures in which the Lord warns the faithful
not to "rob" him by withholding their tithes:
" 'Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw
open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not
have room enough for it.' "
E.W. Kenyon, an evangelical pastor in the first half of the 20th century, was
an early and influential advocate of the idea that God would grant material
wishes.
Kenyon wrote about the "power of faith" to bring health and wealth.
He depicted an Almighty who not only protected his followers and forgave their
sins, but handed out gifts if asked. The important thing was to ask.
Kenyon's ideas inspired what came to be known as the Word of Faith movement.
Many of the phrases Kenyon coined such as "What I confess, I
possess" are still used by evangelists.
After Kenyon's death in 1948, other pastors used aspects of his teachings to
draw an even more emphatic connection between piety and prosperity.
Pentecostalists such as Oral Roberts were particularly ardent in espousing
this doctrine.
In the 1960s, Pastor Kenneth Hagin, often described as the father of the Word
of Faith movement, raised the profile of the prosperity gospel still further,
promoting it on television and in books with titles such as "Godliness Is
Profitable" and "How to Write Your Own Ticket with God."
Hagin preached a four-part formula that he said he received in a vision from
Jesus: Say it. Do it. Receive it. Tell it.
First, believers must ask God for what they want. Next, they must demonstrate
their faith through donations. Then they will tap into the "powerhouse of
heaven" and receive their gifts. Finally, they must spread the news.
Most of today's leading televangelists preach some version of this creed.
Paul and Jan Crouch were brought up in the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal
denomination where the prosperity gospel flourishes. After working in
ministries in South Dakota and Michigan, the couple moved to Southern
California in 1961 to run an Assemblies of God TV production facility in
Burbank.
They launched their own network in 1973. After two nights on the air on KBSA-TV
Channel 46 in Santa Ana, they were broke. So the next night, they staged a
telethon.
The phones hardly rang. Then Paul Crouch hit on an idea, he recalled in his
autobiography, "Hello World!" He told Jan to announce on the air
that an anonymous donor had promised to give $20,000 on condition that
viewers pledge the same amount that night.
The anonymous donor was Crouch, and the $20,000 was money the couple had
already lent the network. If viewers came through with $20,000, they would
forgo repayment of the loan.
By evening's end, viewers had phoned in $30,000 in pledges, enough to keep TBN
on the air.
"Without really realizing it at the time, I had put into motion one of
God's most powerful laws the law of giving and receiving, sowing and
reaping," Crouch wrote. "Thirty-, 60- and 100-fold blessing is,
indeed, a glorious truth and blessing for those who will simply obey the word
of the Lord!"
The prosperity gospel became the foundation of TBN fundraising. The Crouches
and TBN personalities such as faith healer Benny Hinn present the doctrine
with passion and a flair for the dramatic.
During fundraising "Praise-a-thons," the Crouches read testimonials
from donors whose debts supposedly were miraculously forgiven or who
inexplicably received checks in the mail. They pray over donors' pledge cards.
In 2000, TBN televangelists told viewers that those who promised $2,000 would
get the money back before the end of the year and would find that their
debts had been canceled. Later, donors were invited to send in loan statements
and other debt paperwork. The documents were burned on a stone altar.
During another pitch, Crouch read on camera a letter he said was from a
financially strapped viewer who had pledged $4,000.
According to Crouch, the donor wrote: "Within 15 minutes of that time, I
received a check in the U.S. mail in the amount of $5,496.70. No
explanation
. I know it's not an income tax return. I don't make enough
money to file returns."
That year, in a fundraising letter to the network's "prayer
partners," Crouch wrote: "Praise the Lord, the reports of awesome
miracles of debts canceled and God's people coming out of debt continue to
come in. God's economy of giving really works!"
What Windfall?
Most mainstream theologians and pastors say the prosperity gospel is at
best a doctrinal error and at worst a con game. They point out that Jesus and
his disciples abandoned their possessions in order to live a spiritually rich
life.
"It is difficult to fathom how anyone familiar with the abundance of
biblical teaching about the 'deceitfulness of riches' could have devised the
prosperity gospel," said William Martin, a sociology professor at Rice
University and author of a biography of Billy Graham.
"While the Bible does not condemn all wealth, it surely points to its
dangers in numerous passages."
Critics of TBN say that the promise of financial miracles besides being a
distraction from the core principles of Christianity can cause real harm.
Ole E. Anthony, founder of the Trinity Foundation in Dallas, a televangelist
watchdog, said he knew people who had given the last of their savings to TV
preachers, hoping for a windfall that never came.
"The people on TBN are living the lifestyle of fabulous wealth on the
backs of the poorest and most desperate people in our society," Anthony
said. "People have lost their faith in God because they believe they
weren't worthy after not receiving their financial blessing."
Thomas D. Horne, of Williford, Ark., a disabled Vietnam-era veteran, said that
in 1994 he was swept away by the rhetoric of TBN pastors and donated about
$6,000 in disability benefits.
Time went by and he did not receive the promised surfeit of money. Last year,
he found out that TBN had purchased a Newport Beach mansion overlooking the
Pacific. He wrote to the network, asking for his money back.
"I want to recoup my hard-earned disability money I sent to these
despicable people," said Horne. He said he has received no reply.
Philip McPeake is another donor for whom God's economy of giving did not
deliver. Out of work and out of luck in November 1998, McPeake heard the Rev.
R.W. Schambach make an impassioned plea for donations on TBN's Kansas City
television station, KTAJ.
Schambach promised that if viewers sent $200 as a down payment on a $2,000
pledge, God would give them the rest within 90 days with a bonus to
follow.
McPeake sent in his money and waited for his luck to change. When it didn't,
he complained to the Missouri state attorney general's office and the Federal
Communications Commission. TBN refunded his donation.
Carl Geisendorfer, who runs a low-power Christian television station in
Quincy, Ill., offered TBN programming for 19 years until, he said, he grew
disgusted by the televangelists' financial appeals.
He said he pulled TBN off the air in 2002 after watching a preacher tell
viewers that they should pledge $2,000 even if they didn't have it in
order to receive a financial miracle from God.
"I should have canceled TBN several years earlier, but I thought Paul
Crouch would finally see the light on how foolish and prideful that false
gospel is," said Geisendorfer, president of Believer's Broadcasting
Corp., a small media group. "I'm sorry I waited as long as I did."
Geisendorfer said donations to his station dropped 25% after he dropped TBN's
programs. He said Paul Crouch called him and, during a 90-minute conversation,
admitted to struggling over how far to go in promising financial rewards to
donors.
"He said, 'What's the difference if some believe it or not. It works for
many people. Why not?' " Geisendorfer wrote in a newsletter sent to
station supporters last year. He quoted Crouch as saying: "The money
comes in and the world is being reached by the Gospel."
Crouch declined to be interviewed for this article. His son, Paul Crouch Jr.,
a TBN executive, said critics of the prosperity gospel overlook the fact that
the network has used viewers' contributions to bring God's word to millions of
people.
He said it was unfortunate that "the prosperity gospel is a lightning rod
for the Body of Christ. It's not what drives TBN."
If TBN was interested only in money, the younger Crouch said, it would sell
advertisements instead of funding its operations primarily with viewers'
contributions.
"We could double our money tomorrow," he said.
He added that appeals for money make up a small part of TBN programming and
are prominent mainly during TBN's twice-yearly, weeklong
"Praise-a-thons."
Those are the times when Rick Johnston, a retired pastor who lives near
Flagstaff, Ariz., swings into action.
Johnston, 56, organizes groups of like-minded Christians to try to jam TBN's
phone lines during "Praise-a-thons." The strategy is to stay on the
line as long as possible offering phony pledges.
"I feel like a little fly trying to knock down Goliath," Johnston
said. "But if I can stop somebody from being robbed of $100, I'm going to
do it. There are worse things in life I could be guilty of doing."
Not all TBN donors are looking for a financial payback. Many say they are more
interested in the promise of salvation and in helping spread the message of
Jesus.
Jeanne Fish, 87, a widow who lives in a Tustin apartment, said she took solace
from TBN when her husband died nearly 20 years ago and has been a loyal viewer
ever since.
"I get so much out of it," she said. "It's almost like getting
a theology degree. It's kind of hard to turn off, in fact."
Loyal viewers are dumbfounded that TBN generates controversy within the
evangelical community.
"I'm just so amazed and shocked that so many people don't like [TBN] in
the Christian world," said Arthur Robbins, an artist who lives near Santa
Cruz. "It's a huge undertaking to promote the Gospel worldwide, and
they're doing it."
On the air, Paul Crouch responds to criticism of the prosperity gospel by
invoking Satan.
"If the devil can keep all of us Christians poor, we won't have any
disposable income to build Christian television stations," Crouch said
once.
Michael Giuliano, an expert in televangelism at Westmont College in Santa
Barbara, said this is an effective strategy.
"It's very, very powerful," he said. "In a world of
uncertainty, you know who the good guys in the white hats are and who the guys
in the black hats are. And giving money to TBN is a tangible way to join the
fight for the good guys."
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
`Get Jesus on that credit card!'
Pastor Paul Crouch and other evangelists appearing on Trinity Broadcasting
Network tell viewers that God will reward them many times over for their
donations. Examples:
Paul Crouch
'God spoke to me clearly and said, "Did I give my son Jesus on the
cross expecting nothing in return?" God bankrupted heaven and gave the
best gift he could give
. You can bring God a gift fully expecting something
in return. Get to the phone!'
'Have you got something that you have been praying about 10, 15, 20 years? You
have been praying for it and haven't gotten it
. It could be that you
haven't gotten it because you are a tightwad and you haven't given your 10%.'
'People ask me sometimes, "I have been asking from God and not receiving
anything." I have to ask them some hard questions: Are you giving
anything?'
Pastor Rod Parsley
'You're on the brink of a miracle. Go to the phone and give $1,000,
$5,000, $10,000 and $1 million. Go to the phone
. God has a miracle waiting
on your response.'
'God gave his best at Calvary. He told me, "Don't you dare come before me
if you don't give your best!" '
'To reap a perpetual harvest you need to sow a perpetual seed. I got a need
for seed.'
Bishop Clarence McClendon
'God spoke to me that there are 1,000 people that will give no less than
$100, I got this word! Get up! Get up! Get up! Go to the phone
.The spirit
of God promised me that he would bless your seed! Go to the phone right now!
If you're sowing $1,000, do it now! If you're sowing $100, do it now!'
'Some of you are wrestling with debt that you cannot pay off. God told me this
morning to tell you to
sow a seed on the credit card that you want God to
pay off
. Get Jesus on that credit card! Make a pledge on that credit card!'
Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this
report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tbnfcc20sep20,1,2777798.story
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
September 20, 2004
Televangelist Paul Crouch often blames Satan for the difficulties he
encountered building Trinity Broadcasting Network into the world's largest
Christian broadcaster.
But the most serious challenge TBN has faced was from an earthly source: the
Federal Communications Commission.
In 1995, the agency ruled that Crouch had created a "sham" minority
company to circumvent limits on the number of television stations his network
could own.
Crouch told viewers that the ruling, if allowed to stand, would prevent TBN
from acquiring two new stations and, worse, would jeopardize the station
licenses it already held.
"The whole network was ultimately on the line," he wrote in his
autobiography, "Hello World!"
The controversy centered on National Minority TV, a company created by TBN to
buy television stations. TBN itself owned the maximum number then allowed by
federal rules 12.
In 1993, National Minority TV asked the FCC to renew the license of a station
it owned in Miami. Advocacy groups complained that the company was a mere
front for Crouch and asked the agency not to renew the license.
National Minority TV was run by a three-member board of directors: Crouch; his
former administrative assistant, Jane Duff, an African American; and David
Espinosa, a Latino pastor.
"So we had it a minority-controlled board, two to one!" wrote
Crouch.
In 1995, an FCC judge ruled that National Minority TV was not
minority-controlled but rather was a "sham" by which Crouch had
tried to sidestep the ownership limit.
Crouch appealed to the five-member FCC board. He also began negotiating with
the advocacy groups, offering them a monetary settlement to drop their
challenge.
Crouch turned to TBN viewers for money.
A five-night telethon elicited $65 million in pledges. Crouch offered that sum
as a settlement, and the advocacy groups agreed to accept it.
In 1999, however, the FCC rejected the settlement and refused to renew
National Minority TV's license for the Miami station.
It said TBN's claim that the company was minority-controlled "was at best
doubtful and at worst false."
Crouch appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit and won. The court ruled in 2000 that federal rules on minority
broadcasting companies were unclear and that TBN "may not be
punished."
Congress later raised the limit on station ownership. TBN now owns 23
full-power stations around the country.
Crouch said God was responsible for the happy outcome: "He never loses a
case!"
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-tbn19sep19,1,2144480.story
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
September 19, 2004
Pastor Paul Crouch looked into the camera and told his flock that Trinity
Broadcasting Network needed $8 million to spread the Gospel throughout India
and save 1 billion souls from damnation.
Crouch, head of the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, said even
viewers who couldn't afford a $1,000 pledge should take a "step of
faith" and make one anyway. The Lord would repay them many times over, he
said.
"Do you think God would have any trouble getting $1,000 extra to you
somehow?" he asked during a "Praise-a-thon" broadcast from
Trinity's studios in Costa Mesa.
The network's "prayer partners" came through once again, phoning in
enough pledges in one evening to put Christian programming on 8,700 television
stations across India.
TBN was not short on cash. In fact, it could have paid for the India expansion
out of the interest on its investment portfolio. But at TBN, the appeals for
money never stop. Nor does the flow of contributions.
Over the last 31 years, Crouch and his wife, Jan, have parlayed their viewers'
small expressions of faith into a worldwide broadcasting empire and a life
of luxury.
The network, little known outside fundamentalist Christian circles, was
buffeted by unwanted publicity last week, when The Times reported that Crouch
had paid a former employee $425,000 to keep silent about an alleged homosexual
tryst.
But millions of people needed no introduction to TBN. Its 24-hour-a-day menu
of sermons, faith healing, inspirational movies and Christian talk shows
reaches viewers around the globe via satellite, cable and broadcast stations.
Its programs are dubbed in 11 different languages.
In the U.S. alone, TBN is watched by more than 5 million households each week,
more than its three main competitors combined. Its signature offering,
"Praise the Lord," has as many prime-time viewers as Chris Matthews'
"Hardball" on MSNBC remarkable for a faith network.
Televangelists who once dominated the field, such as Pat Robertson, now air
their shows on TBN.
Much as Ted Turner did for TV news, the Crouches have created a global
infrastructure for religious broadcasting. But that is just one element in
their success. Another is a doctrine called the "prosperity gospel,"
which promises worshipers that God will shower them with material blessings if
they sacrifice to spread His word.
This theme that viewers will be rewarded, even enriched, for donating
pervades TBN programming.
"When you give to God," Crouch said during a typical appeal for
funds, "you're simply loaning to the Lord and He gives it right on
back."
Though it carries no advertising, the network generates more than $170 million
a year in revenue, tax filings show. Viewer contributions account for
two-thirds of that money.
Lower-income, rural Americans in the South are among TBN's most faithful
donors. The network says that 70% of its contributions are in amounts less
than $50.
Those small gifts underwrite a lifestyle that most of the ministry's
supporters can only dream about.
Paul, 70, collects a $403,700 salary as TBN's chairman and president. Jan, 67,
is paid $361,000 as vice president and director of programming. Those are the
highest salaries paid by any of the 12 major religious nonprofits whose
finances are tracked by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
TBN's "prayer partners" pay for a variety of perquisites as well.
The Crouches travel the world in a $7.2-million, 19-seat Canadair Turbojet
owned by TBN. They drive luxury cars. They have charged expensive dinners and
furniture to TBN credit cards.
Thirty ministry-owned homes are at their disposal including a pair of
Newport Beach mansions, a mountain retreat near Lake Arrowhead and a ranch in
Texas.
The Crouches' family members share in the benefits. Their oldest son, Paul
Jr., earns $90,800 a year as TBN's vice president for administration. Another
son, Matthew, has received $32 million from the network since 1999 to produce
Christian-themed movies such as "The Omega Code."
Overseeing these expenditures is a board of directors that consists of Paul
Crouch, Jan Crouch and Paul's 74-year-old sister, Ruth Brown. Control resides
primarily with Paul. In a 2001 legal deposition, Jan said she did not know she
was a corporate officer and could not recall the last board meeting she
attended.
TBN's declared mission as a tax-exempt Christian charity is to produce and
broadcast television shows and movies "for the purpose of spreading the
Gospel to the world."
Supporters' tax-deductible donations fund the ministry's worldwide television
network and keep it growing. Expansion is an overriding goal. Televised
appeals seek money for new transmitters, more satellite time and fresh cable
deals to bring God's word to an ever-larger audience.
As more people hear the Crouches' message, more are inspired to send
donations. That pays for further expansion, which brings more viewers and
more donations.
The formula has proved extraordinarily successful. While other religious
broadcasters have struggled, TBN has posted surpluses averaging nearly $60
million a year since 1997. Its balance sheet for 2002, the most recent
available, lists net assets of $583 million, including $238 million in
Treasury bonds and other government securities and $31 million in cash. It has
400 employees across the country.
Such figures have prompted questions about why the network continues to plead
for contributions. Wall Watchers, a nonprofit group in Charlotte, N.C., that
monitors religious ministries, has urged Christian donors to stop writing
checks to TBN.
"They have more money than they need," said Wall Watchers chairman
Howard "Rusty" Leonard, a former investment manager for the
Templeton mutual fund group. "There's nothing like this. It's over the
top."
The Crouches declined to be interviewed for this article. Through TBN
officials, they said the ministry keeps raising money so it can avoid going
into debt as it pays for TV stations, satellite time and other ways to spread
the Gospel.
Regarding the Crouches' salaries, the ministry said that during the network's
first 21 years, Paul was paid less than $40,000 a year on average and Jan less
than $35,000. The couple accepted higher compensation only in the last decade,
as they approached retirement, officials said. Their current salaries were
determined by independent compensation experts hired by the ministry's
accounting firm, TBN said.
Devoted viewers say the Crouches have nothing to apologize for. Indeed, the
ministry's material success is part of its appeal to believers proof that
the Crouches enjoy God's favor.
"The fruit of God is on their life," said Tennille Lowe, a computer
analyst in Phoenix City, Ala., who is in her 20s and watches the network every
day. "If they weren't prospering, I'd say, 'Wait a minute. I don't see
any evidence [of God's blessing] in their life.' "
The most visible evidence of the Crouches' success is Trinity Christian City
International in Costa Mesa, a striking white wedding cake of a building
surrounded by reflecting pools, sculptures and neoclassical colonnades.
Visitors to the complex, alongside the San Diego Freeway, can attend live
studio broadcasts, buy TBN-branded clothing and stroll down a re-creation of
Via Dolorosa, the street in Jerusalem where Jesus walked to his crucifixion.
In a high-tech 50-seat theater, people watch biblical movies in seats that
tremble during the quakes, storms and other disasters recounted in the
Scriptures.
The ministry owns a similar complex near Dallas and a Christian entertainment
center outside Nashville.
But most TBN devotees will never visit those places. They connect with the
network through its television programs, which provide a spiritual lifeline
for millions. Many of these viewers worship in their living rooms. TBN
preachers are their pastors.
"I don't go to church
. I turn the TV on and it's right there,"
said Sherry Peters, a bookkeeper in Mississippi. "Sometimes I will watch
it for weeks on end, every day."
Olivia Foster, 52, of Westminster, sends the network $70 a month out of her
$820 disability check.
"Without TBN, I wouldn't be here," said Foster, who lives alone and
suffers from AIDS. "That's the Gospel truth. It gave me purpose that God
could use me. I watch it 18 hours a day."
A Ham-Radio Start
Paul Crouch is the son of Pentacostal missionaries. Raised in Missouri, he
took an interest in broadcasting at 12, when a friend introduced him to ham
radio. By 15, he was a licensed operator. In a high school essay, he wrote
that he "would one day use this invention of shortwave radio to send the
Gospel around the world," according to his autobiography, "Hello
World!"
At the Central Bible Institute in Springfield, Mo., Crouch and fellow students
wired the campus for low-wattage radio and broadcast Gospel messages.
After graduation, Crouch stayed in Springfield and went to work for the
Assemblies of God, a branch of Pentacostalism whose rituals include faith
healing and speaking in tongues. His job was to maintain a film library. At
the time the early 1950s many Protestant denominations were
experimenting with movies and television as tools to win converts and teach
the faithful.
During a visit to Rapid City, S.D., in 1956, Crouch was smitten by "a
slight 98-pound angel" in a red dress, he later recalled. This was Jan
Bethany, daughter of a leading Assemblies of God pastor.
The two married a year later and eventually settled in Rapid City, where
Crouch became an associate pastor of his brother-in-law's church. In 1961, the
Crouches left to run the Assemblies of God's new broadcast production facility
in Burbank.
Twelve years later, the Crouches went out on their own, renting air time on
KBSA-TV Channel 46 in Santa Ana. TBN's first studio set included pieces of
furniture from the Crouches' bedroom, with a shower curtain as a backdrop.
The televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, then friends of the couple,
moved from Michigan to help with the fledgling network and lived with the
Crouches for a time.
The partnership didn't last long. In his autobiography, Crouch says that Jim
Bakker tried to take over the network, but failed. The Bakkers then left for
South Carolina and started their own TV ministry, which was a huge success
before it was wrecked by scandal in 1987. Bakker admitted to an affair with a
secretary and was later convicted of defrauding followers who invested in a
religious retreat.
TBN, meanwhile, was quietly broadening its reach with help from the
Almighty, by Crouch's account. During the network's first day on the air, God
moved a mountain so a clear broadcast signal could reach an antenna atop Mt.
Wilson, Crouch wrote in his autobiography.
"And we will ever know that it was not just a spiritual mountain this
was a real dirt, rock and tree mountain!"
In its early days, TBN delivered programming through a web of UHF and
low-power stations. Then, as the cable industry developed, Crouch bought time
on systems across the country.
One evening in 1975, he was inspired to embrace a new technology. Crouch wrote
that he was sitting in the den of his Newport Beach home when God projected a
map of the U.S. on the ceiling. Beams of light struck major population
centers, then spread throughout the country.
"I sat there transfixed by what I was seeing as I cried out to God to
show me what all this meant," Crouch wrote. "As I waited upon the
Lord, He spoke a ringing, resounding word to my spirit 'Satellite!' "
While other televangelists concentrated on developing programs, Crouch built
an unmatched distribution system. TBN outlasted or eclipsed its rivals and now
leads all faith networks in revenue and viewership.
Today, the ministry and its subsidiaries own 23 full-power stations in the
U.S. including KTBN Channel 40 in Santa Ana and 252 low-power stations
serving rural areas.
Overseas, the network owns interests in stations in El Salvador, Spain and
Kenya. Contracts with cable and satellite companies and station owners further
extend its reach.
All-told, TBN airs on more than 6,000 stations in 75 countries,
including places as remote as Rarotonga in the Cook Islands and Mbabane,
Swaziland. Its programs are also available over the Internet.
To serve this diverse audience, translators at the network's International
Production Center in Irving, Texas, dub programs into Spanish, Afrikaans,
Portuguese, Hebrew, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese.
A typical day of TBN programming includes health and lifestyle shows, Bible
study, religious movies and late-night Christian rock videos. Pentecostal
pastors espouse the prosperity gospel and offer prophecies about the Second
Coming of Jesus.
Mainstream evangelists such as Robertson, Billy Graham and Robert H. Schuller
appear on the network. Some lease their air time. Such payments bring in more
than $35 million a year, nearly one-fifth of TBN's revenue. So many preachers
want air time that the network keeps a waiting list.
The most popular offering is "Praise the Lord," a nightly, two-hour
mix of talk, prayer and music. The Crouches and a revolving cast of guest
hosts hold forth on a set decorated with stained-glass windows, chandeliers,
imitation French antiques and a gold-painted piano.
With his silver hair, mustache and bifocals, Paul Crouch comes across as a
grandfatherly sort. What he calls his "German temper" can rise
quickly, however. He often punctuates a point by shaking a finger at the
camera.
"Get out of God's way," he said once, referring to TBN's detractors.
"Quit blocking God's bridges or God is going to shoot you, if I
don't."
Jan Crouch wears heavy makeup, long false lashes and champagne-colored wigs
piled high on her head. She speaks in a sing-song voice and lets tears flow
freely, whether reading a viewer's letter or recalling how God resurrected her
pet chicken when she was a child.
She and Paul project the image of a happily married couple. But off the air,
they lead separate lives and rarely stay under the same roof, according to
former TBN employees and others who have spent time with the couple.
The Crouches also present themselves as thrifty and budget-conscious. During
one telethon, Paul said his personal $50,000 donation to TBN had wiped out the
family checking account. He often says that he and his wife live in the same
Newport Beach tract house they bought 33 years ago for $38,500.
But nowadays, neither of the Crouches uses that home much. Whether in Southern
California or on the road, they live in a variety of other TBN-owned homes. In
all, the network owns 30 residences in California, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio
all paid for in cash, property records show.
These include two Newport Beach mansions in a gated community overlooking the
Pacific. One of them was recently on the market for an asking price of $8
million. A real estate advertisement said it featured "11,000 square feet
of opulent European luxury with regulation tennis courts and a rambling
terraced hillside orchard with view of the blue Pacific."
In Costa Mesa, the ministry owns 11 homes in a gated development adjacent to
Trinity Christian City International.
In Sky Forest, a resort community in the San Bernardino National Forest, the
network owns a four-bedroom, five-bath home.
TBN officials say the real estate purchases were consistent with the network's
charitable mission, because the homes serve as venues for broadcasts and
provide lodging for the Crouches and fellow televangelists as they travel
across the country. The properties have also been good investments, they said.
From 1994 to 1996, TBN spent $13.7 million to acquire Twitty City, a tourist
attraction on the former Nashville-area estate of country singer Conway Twitty,
along with some adjacent property. After extensive renovations, the site
reopened as Trinity Music City USA, a Christian entertainment park with TV
studios, a church, a concert hall and a movie theater.
The amenities include a pair of condominiums for the Crouches. One is
furnished in Paul's taste, the other in Jan's, former employees said.
In Colleyville, Texas, near the network's International Production Center, TBN
owns nine homes on 66 acres along a country road, a spread called Shiloh
Ranch. Six horses graze in a pasture; TBN officials say they were gifts from
admirers.
Paul and Jan visit from time to time, and TBN occasionally broadcasts
specials from the ranch.
Ministry officials say that a Christian drug treatment program also uses the
property, but former employees say the program left years ago and Colleyville
officials say there is no permit for such an operation.
A Passion for Antiques
Wherever they happen to be staying, the Crouches indulge expensive tastes
courtesy of TBN donors, former employees say.
Kelly Whitmore, a former personal assistant to Jan Crouch, said in interviews
with The Times that she used a TBN American Express card to make numerous
personal purchases for Jan and Paul, including groceries, clothes, cosmetics,
alcohol and a tanning bed.
Whitmore, 43, who lives outside Nashville, worked at TBN from 1992 to 1997. On
the air, Jan once called her "my right arm."
TBN officials now describe her as a disgruntled ex-employee whose word cannot
be trusted. Whitmore acknowledged that she has hired an agent and hopes to
sell her story to TV or film producers.
Whitmore and another former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said Jan Crouch's special passion was antiques.
Credit card receipts show that in December 1994, TBN bought about 40 items
from Cool Springs Antiques in Brentwood, Tenn., including a three-piece wine
cabinet for $10,000, a $2,800 candelabrum, a $350 birdbath and a seven-piece
bedroom suite that cost $3,995.
At Harris Antiques and Imports in Forth Worth, Texas, TBN spent $32,851 in a
single day in 1995. The purchases included two French chests for about $1,900
each, a $1,650 brass planter and a $1,095 bronze urn.
TBN officials said the items were reproductions, not antiques, and were used
to furnish studio sets and network-owned houses. They said the tanning bed was
used to darken the skin of 25 actors cast in TBN stage productions set in
Biblical times.
Whitmore said she regularly used ministry money and a network-owned van to
stock the bars in Paul's and Jan's separate condominiums at Trinity Music
City.
Whitmore said the Crouches directed her to make the purchases at a store
called Frugal McDougal, hoping it would not be recognizable on credit-card
statements as a liquor store.
Credit card receipts also offer a glimpse of the Crouches' dining habits. In
Nashville in the mid-1990s, Paul Crouch hosted dinners with TBN employees in a
private room of Mario's, an upscale Italian restaurant, spending $180 or more
per person for parties of up to a dozen, the receipts show.
A former top TBN official described heavy consumption of wine and liquor at a
dozen such dinners. The ex-official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a
fear of retaliation.
"I have no problem with people drinking," the former official said,
"but I have a problem drinking with [prayer] partners' money."
In separate interviews, Whitmore, the former TBN official and a third person
who traveled and socialized with ministry leaders said that at the end of a
dinner, Paul Crouch would sometimes hold up a TBN credit card and say:
"Thank you, little partners!"
In a statement, ministry officials said that if Crouch thanked donors, it was
"a sincere gesture and remembrance of true thanks."
They also said it was appropriate for TBN to pay for dinners at which network
business was conducted. When network credit cards were used to pay for
personal expenses or for alcohol, the Crouches or other TBN officials
reimbursed the ministry, they said.
Unending Appeals
TBN never stops raising money. All that varies is the method.
The network appeals directly for cash during weeklong
"Praise-a-thons" held twice a year, in the spring and fall. The
approach is not subtle. The Crouches suggest that "Praise the Lord"
will go dark if viewers don't send money.
No mention is made of the ministry's flush finances.
"The question is: Shall we keep this great, live, prime-time 'Praise the
Lord' program on the air for another year?" Paul Crouch asked during last
November's telethon. "It's really up to you."
Jan, from a studio in Atlanta, added: "Oh, dear friends, come on. We've
got to keep 'Praise the Lord' on the air."
Viewers pledge a total of $90 million during a typical
"Praise-a-thon." TBN says it collects about half the money promised.
During the rest of the year, the ministry keeps donations flowing by less
intrusive means.
Except during "Praise-a-Thons," pastors appearing on the network can
solicit donations only during the last 30 seconds of a half-hour show or the
last 60 seconds of a one-hour show. TBN executives call this "the 11th
Commandment."
But the network's toll-free "prayer line" is always visible at the
bottom of the TV screen, bringing a steady stream of calls from people
troubled by debts, illnesses and other problems.
The calls are answered by paid and volunteer "prayer warriors" in a
cluster of drab two-story buildings in a Tustin office park.
The workers, Bibles at the ready, write down callers' requests for
healings, financial relief, mended marriages, jobs and pray with them on
the phone. TBN officials say the prayer requests are then taken to a chapel on
the premises and prayed over.
While they have callers on the phone, the volunteers ask for their names and
addresses. Later, the information is entered into a direct-mail database, one
of Trinity's most powerful fundraising tools.
If the sumptuous Costa Mesa complex with its biblical murals and reflecting
pools is TBN's spiritual heart, the Tustin complex is its financial nerve
center.
Workers there deal with a daily avalanche of mail from around the world
poems, prayers, testimonials and donations in a variety of currencies. With
surveillance cameras overhead, employees process the mail in an
assembly-line-like operation, separating donations from prayer requests. The
Spartan dιcor and brisk pace suggest a bank processing center.
In an adjoining room, employees enter the letter writers' names and addresses
into the direct-mail database, which has 1.2 million names. An in-house
printing and mailing operation generates thousands of letters a day asking the
faithful to give.
Sheryl Silva of Anaheim is among those who do. She says the network has been a
source of strength during difficult times, including a period of homelessness.
"I love to give whenever I can at least $15 per month," said
Silva, 46, who has glaucoma and gets by on a monthly disability check of about
$900. "I give because I don't want them to go off the air. They might be
the only thing good on TV that day."
Three Days in Iraq
Just as the fundraising never ceases, TBN's efforts to widen its audience
are unending.
In recent years, the network has focused on winning viewers in the former
Soviet-bloc countries, the Middle East and Asia. Crouch is negotiating with
Chinese officials to make TBN available in hotels, embassies, foreign
residential compounds and churches.
Earlier this year, the network converted to a digital signal, enabling it to
deliver three spinoff channels through the same pipeline that carries TBN.
The Spanish-language channel Enlace USA serves the growing evangelical
audience in Central and South America. JC-TV offers youth-oriented Christian
programs. The Church Channel broadcasts church services.
In March, Crouch made a three-day trip to Iraq, where his son Matt filmed him
giving a satellite receiver to an Iraqi pastor. Crouch handed $10,000 in cash
to another Iraqi clergyman to buy receivers for churches and individuals who
wanted to watch TBN.
In a fundraising letter, Crouch said that while he was in the war zone, God
granted him another miracle.
"I honestly believe that Matt and I, with our small group, were made
invisible to the barriers, checkpoints, armed guards, military infrastructure
and enemies all around us!" he wrote. "Supernatural favor was our
portion as we moved effortlessly through the war-torn and suffering city of
Baghdad."
Then he asked his followers for their support.
"Will you help us help them? I know you will!"
Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this
report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tbn14sep14,1,3392803.story
By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer
September 14, 2004
While the Christian community buzzed Monday about allegations that televangelist
Paul Crouch had been involved in a homosexual tryst, Trinity Broadcasting
Network officials said their leader would continue "God's call" as the
network's president.
They also said that Christian leaders from around the country offered private
words of encouragement Monday for Crouch.
"We prepared for the worst and prayed for the best," knowing that the
allegations would be made public over the weekend, said Paul Crouch Jr., eldest
son of the pastor and an executive at the network.
"So far our prayers are being answered. Most of the e-mails and calls have
been very positive."
He said the network received unsolicited backing from dozens of Christian
leaders who called or e-mailed their support, including author Josh McDowell;
Doug Wead, a onetime advisor to former President George H.W. Bush; and singers
Pat Boone and Carman.
On Sunday, The Times detailed the fierce legal battle that Crouch successfully
fought to keep secret a 1998 agreement that paid Enoch Lonnie Ford $425,000 in
exchange for staying silent about his allegations of a sexual encounter between
him and Crouch in 1996 at a TBN-owned cabin near Lake Arrowhead.
When Ford wrote a manuscript last year that contained details of his
allegations, Crouch went to court to enforce the 1998 agreement.
An Orange County judge issued a restraining order in April 2003 that prevented
the memoir's publication until a private arbitrator could rule if it violated
the agreement. In June, the arbitrator ruled in Crouch's favor.
The news sparked a 650-word statement by TBN on Sunday. In it, the network
called the allegations "salacious" and labeled Ford an ex-convict and
longtime drug abuser.
Ford, who worked for TBN from 1992 to 1996 in a variety of jobs, served jail
time in the 1990s for cocaine possession and having sex with a 17-year-old boy.
TBN officials also said that Crouch agreed to the settlement to avoid costly
litigation and scandal.
"The importance of the settlement does not rest on the money paid, but
rather on Dr. Crouch's vehement denial of the allegations made against him as
well as the agreement of the accuser to keep confidential and refrain from
repeating his false claims and accusations," TBN officials said in the
statement.
TBN officials also said that the "accuser and his false claims were soundly
defeated in court."
In fact, neither the civil court judge or private arbitrator ruled on the
validity of Ford's claims only that the 1998 settlement prevented their
disclosure.
Ford's allegations stirred debate on the Internet, generating nearly 1,500
comments on a Yahoo message board, for example.
Some were skeptical of Ford's allegations.
"This accuser does have motive for fraud," wrote one anonymous reader.
"I'll reserve judgment until I know all the facts. Of course, the
Christian-haters will come out of the woodwork before then. Anything that
discredits Christianity is good for them."
But another wrote: "If it never happened, then what is Crouch worried
about?
The 'image' is what is being protected here."
Jason T. Christy, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Church Report, a business
magazine for Christian leaders, said he stayed busy Monday answering phone calls
and e-mails about the scandal.
"It's had a great effect in the Christian community," Christy said.
While there was debate about the credibility of the allegations, most were
concerned about how another televangelist scandal would hurt their ministries.
"The majority of people are sick of this type of stuff," Christy said.
"The only time you hear about the Christian community is when something bad
happens."
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times