Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Liars and deceivers, or just human?

These 3 individuals have interested me recently. All are pastors of very large and powerful churches (rather, were). All suffered scandals, and all were once mercilessly attacked by US media and the public.

Jim Bakker

-Built a now defunct Christian-theme park called Heritage USA in the 1980s that was once the 3rd most visited theme park in USA, receiving 6 million visitors a year and competing with the likes of Disneyland. Bakker was soon to be indicted on federal charges of fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering, and served 5 years in prison.


Jimmy Swaggart

Pentecostal preacher and pioneer of televangelism who reached the height of his popularity in the 1980s. During the 1970s, Swaggart established a lucrative ministry under the Assemblies of God, which in the 1980s was estimated to make over $150 million per year.

When the scandal destroyed fellow minister Jim Bakker, Swaggart publicly denounced Bakker's scandal (not Bakker personally) as "a cancer on the body of Christ." Shortly afterward, Swaggart faced his own sex scandal when a private investigator, hired by a rival evangelist Marvin Gorman, documented a series of Swaggart's meetings with prostitutes.



Ted Haggard

-Pastor and founder of a megachurch (New Life Church), who recently was forced to resign after a male prostitute accused him of being a hypocrite, criticising homosexuality publicly, while maintaining a secret sexual relationship with him. Haggard was also alleged to have got himself high on methamphetamines during sex romps.

"I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life.... "

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Whoa. All led large religious organisations, all organisations were flush with money, and all went down hard, with extremely damaging allegations. All had gained and lost the trust of a good many common folk.

All, would be really, really scary, if they had happened in Singapore.

jOhn thought at 1:20 PM