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Christianity Today, June, 2009 |

Popping the Fraud Bubble

More churches seek protection as scams continue to unfold.

Ken Walker | posted 5/19/2009 09:37AM

As affinity fraud continues to victimize Christian churches and organizations, signs are emerging that more believers are demanding accountability and oversight.

But these efforts may be too late for victims ...

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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 comments.

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cynthia curran

Posted: June 01, 2009 10:36 PM

To the orthodox, I would recommend Susan Harvey's work on asecticism during the reign of the Emperor Justinian about the lives of saints by John of Ephesius. There was a lot of phony miracles and exorcisms done by Sytlites-ascetics that live on columns. In fact, the early days of what became the Orthodox church today had a lot of tales to make certain early hermits and ascetics do usual things that were very exaggerated. Also, in John Norwich Second Volumne on Byzantium, there a battle that the Byzantiness won and the robe of the virgin was responsible for the victory. These of some of the reasons why I was not interest in the Orthodox church knowing a little history of the Byzantine empire and mircles of some of the early saints from the Orthodox church.

H. D. Schmidt

Posted: May 23, 2009 8:36 AM

As a legal immigrant of 53+ years, a fraud that just about every single Church Denomination is guilt off, as all of them are Sanctuaries to illegals who come mostly for material gain. Mmbership granted without demanding documents. Yes, everymore lofty places from which to preach the Gospel, with all kinds of musical instruments. In reality and since more and more Christians from everywhere know that if they make it into the US they are homefree. Telling the world, you all come to America and we will give you all the material garbage Americans, including Chritians fill up personal storage places. Christianity in America is now full speed ahead destroying itself in America as well as all over the world, along with the Nation as it, has also become the greatest criminal the world has ever known heretofore. Its military circling the globe, an absolute insult to God Almighty and to the Founding Fathers. Jesus is weeping over Americas, so called followers of Him, while Satan is smiling!

Faith

Posted: May 21, 2009 3:34 AM

operation promised land cannot be a ponzi or pyramid being that they are not taking any of its members' funds. it is a great big ol' team build which place its members in existing LEGAL, PROFITABLE companies. boy, oh boy! when will people learn to be discerning in a positive manner. They do not take one red cent from any member. If a member choose to join any of the companies, they pay the companies directly. And they also have a choice in the matter. God Bless Faith http://teamoperationpromisedland.com

revronvegas

Posted: May 20, 2009 4:59 PM

Church and ministry leaders! Pay attention! The best way to protect the church from this idiocy is ... JUST SAY NO! If the return on investment seems too good to be true ... IT IS. When anybody gets slammed by these bogus outfits it's simply because we make stupid decisions. If we make good decisions we don't need to have accountants and the ECFA solving our problems. Think. We have the mind of Christ and I don't think Jesus gets scammed like this.

Joe	Posted: May 20, 2009 11:47 AM


A lot of the scams are possible because of greed! Many Christians somehow justify greed as long as there is a religious element. If Christians are not desiring "high" returns on their money, they they would be much less susceptible to scams under the disguise of Christianity.

Roger Fraumann

Posted: May 20, 2009 10:58 AM


The article is important, and all of God's Stewards should take heed. A point of clarification... The Purvis case, along with a number of others, were all broken open by Pastor Barry Minkow and the Fraud Discovery Institute. http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfiles/2009/01/19/frauds-unco vered-by-barry-minkow/

James

Posted: May 20, 2009 5:09 AM

We live in the age of scams. The Iraq war, based on a hysterical frenzy supported by the zionist-controlled media, "evangelical" churches and Congress about 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' ('WMD') has caused mass destruction not only of the hapless country of Iraq and the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of its citizens together with the credibility of US "Christianity" and an unprecedented, fully-warranted hatred for America in the Moslem world. Cost: over a trillion dollars and 4000 US lives. The Wall Street melt-down as a result of totally irresponsible scammistological behavior by the banksters, who have been rewarded with a Congress-approved, tax-payer-funded bailout the likes of which this solar system has never before seen, will repay us for not exercising control over the lobbyist-controlled criminals in the Capitol. Cost: trillions more. How much is a trillion dollars? How long will our children be paying for these scams?

Christopher

Posted: May 19, 2009 8:05 PM

Even this newsletter commits a tiny fraud when it serves up an floating ad for Compassion. When I brought up this article on fraud, the floating ad obscured the article until I clicked CLOSE. However, there were two CLOSE options. Only one worked, a ruse to ensure your eye lingers on the ad. This is how dishonesty starts in Christendom. It starts small and builds when one discovers it will be tolerated without complaint. However, Christians should be noted for their honesty. The average Rotary club shows more honesty than many church organizations.

MonkeyBoy

Posted: May 19, 2009 7:21 PM

Christians are just too trusting and simple things like embezzlement are rampant [1] (85,300 Google hits for "church embezzle"). From [2] "Most cases of church embezzling go unreported, says Kent Egging, a pastor in Washington state who has studied church embezzlement for his doctor of ministry degree. Egging, pastor of Bethany Covenant Church in Mount Vernon, says congregations are often embarrassed by what has happened and are unwilling to go to the police." [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=church+embezzle [2] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_5_122/ai_n13493331/

Monk James

Posted: May 19, 2009 6:49 PM

Christ is risen! Truly risen! Dear Friends -- Since all of 'protestant' christianity is inherently heretical and defective, and 'evangelical protestantism' is the most aggressively wrong sept of that clan -- and I say this not from a roman catholic but from an orthodox christian perspective -- it should come as no surprise to people sincerely seeking The Truth that all the megachurch, 'feel good', health-and-wealth stuff is greatly misleading, and in many situations, totally false. Pop psychology, a la Joel Osteen, is NOT christianity. It's self-help psychology. Yet JO is making a big dent in the spiritual lives of people seeking a real relationship with Christ. Let's follow the Gospel. Let's worship The Lord in The Spirit and in The Truth, with full appreciation of the activity of the Holy Trinity in our lives. Let's aspire to participate fully in the holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and get ourselves to the nearest orthodox parish as soon as we can.

wesh	Posted: May 19, 2009 5:48 PM


White collar crime pays very well and has limited penalties. Mixing money and religion commonly produces devils in white robes. Greed, pride and envy havn't changed, there are just more victims. Poor fiscal oversight is almost always an invitation to loss, in business or church.

Anonymous

Posted: May 19, 2009 5:03 PM

Do you know anything about Operation Promised Land"? http://www.bring2help2.com/opl/operationpromisedland/index.php?a=details I was introduced to this over the weekend by a Christian brother. it seems like another Ponzi. Pyramid scheme but they claim it is different. (Your star rating "system" doesn't work well...I wanted to make it a 4 star but after I clicked one to go on to the fourth it wouldn't allow me to do anything else!) Ellaybe

Charitas

Posted: May 19, 2009 1:44 PM

SIB founder R. Allen Stanford and chief financial officer James Davis were roommates at the Baptist-affiliated Baylor University. Baylor faculty members encourage students to think holistically through issues of faith and values when it comes to decision-making in the marketplace, said Baylor's business ethics professor Mitchell Neubert. "But there are always going to be a few who miss the message." ... I was following this article quite well until the final paragraph; can someone please translate it?

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