Predatory Religious Advertising

[neebob]

I just saw the most shameless and sickening example of it on The 700 Club. I didn't catch what Pat Robertson said leading into it, but it was done like one of those home-video segments on the Oprah show. This young couple had moved somewhere - California, I think - and found it more expensive than they had expected. Soon they had trouble paying their bills. Remembering Pat Robertson's teaching about the law of reciprocity, they continued their religious giving - "to CBN in particular" - and even made a conscious decision to increase it. This was the narration over footage of the wife writing checks.

Within weeks, the couple found their finances increasing. First came the "unexpected tax refunds and rebates." Then this guy contacted them "out of the blue" on the internet, saying he was looking for the exact year, make, model, and color of this particular muscle car that the couple just happened to have. Show footage of the flame orange whatever-it-was, with its black-primed front quarter panel - so you can imagine the fortune the dude was willing to pay for it - being loaded onto a flatbed truck. Then the wife found work as a freelance writer (wow! - you can almost hear the greenbacks spilling out of her wallet), and I forget what else.

The segment ended with the couple walking on some kind of beach, all happy after their finances doubled.

Next we see the Reverend Pat, hocking his Secrets of Financial Success package.

Ugh! If ever something ought to be against the law ...

[Dookus]

1. bad

but not the worst I've seen.

One of the shows, and I don't remember who (it wasn't one of the really big guys) had the man and woman going on and on how people SPECIFICALLY in serious financial trouble should send them money. In return, they would receive a "prayer handkerchief" that had been prayed over and would ensure them a quick financial turnaround.

Deliberately preying on the neediest - how fucking sick is that?

[neebob]

3. Pretty fucking sick

you betcha by golly!

[Ruffhowse]

8. Had to be Robert Tilton, the worst panderer of "prosperity theology"...

...that there ever was. He was off the air for a few years cause he got into legal trouble, but he's made a come back recently, spewing his same old "plant seed money with me and see it come back to you 100 fold-Thank you Jesus" garbage.

[8-Ball]

2. What a sad way to screw people out of money.

Make people think their lives will be better because they donate money that they don't have to a television station.

I hope people are not stupid enough to do this.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

4. He TOTALLY ripped that idea off

from a book I read YEARS ago. I don't know if it was the guy who wrote "I'm OK, You're OK" or Billy Graham or someone, but I distinctly remember reading that story in the introduction to a book years ago. The couple was having a hard time, he was a minister, they were young, so they decided to give more to the church and to charities and found they tapped into some kind of "universal riches" as a result.

Robertson can't even come up with his own material, man.

[neebob]

6. It's certainly not an original idea

I was raised in the Mormon church, and that's how they used to explain why so many of the ward bishops, stake presidents, and on up were so well off. My dad put it this way: The Lord calls those who have the wealth to support their time investment and then rewards them for it. No doubt he was just repeating the line he was fed.

Oh, and the way you become wealthy is by paying your tithing. It never happened for my parents, and I'm guessing that's a big part of why they blew the church off after a few years - though my mother would never admit it. She says it was because my dad stopped going.

[JSJ]

5. psyco-extortionary gifts from god- or scripted scenes from gooberville

[Swamp Rat]

7. Pat Robertson had Pat Boon on the 700 Club the other day.

I tried to watch but they started praying and saying things like, "those satanist libruls should be tried for treason" or "Satan is controlling NATO and the Democratic party." They said a few other things about gays, etc. but I turned it off before I broke the TV. These two guys and their ilk are a REAL threat to humanity.

[izzie]

9. This is not a shock to me, I was sort of in business with them once

They used to pray to JC to make money and then steal stuff at night and copy them and then sell them as their own. One Women would hock her stuff at church. And she also took original work and copied it and other sweet stuff. Sure gave Christians a bad name. When a group of us got out of the business they sued up for leaving. It did not work but guess they missed original work to steal.It really was something.