John Oilver."How churches exploit the poor" 20 minutes. 5 years old, credit to-TomCADem

[markpkessinger]

6. I agreee -- this is a very offensive video . . .

. . . and a very ignorant one.

Simply saying "churches," without qualifying which specific organizations you are talking about. and then discussing only the worst abuses pf these televangelists, serves to unjustly malign the great majority of churches in this country.

For many years, I worked as an organist/choir director across numerous denominations: Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran and Episcopalian. In the overwhelming majority of cases,the local churches of these denominations (and of other mainline protestant, as well as Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches), struggle to keep the lights on and meet weekly payroll for clergy and administrative staff. Their clergy are paid very modestly (especially relative to their level of education). And while many of them may indeed maintain a parsonage for their priest/pastor to reside in for the duration of his or her tenure at a particular church, they tend to be pretty average, even relatively modest, homes.

And you're quite correct about mainline denominations' views about the so-called "prosperity gospel." Mainline Christians do, indeed, regard it as heresy. In fact, I think many mainline Christians would be hard-pressed to call these various televangelist enterprises "churches" at all.

But the hucksters/shysters/con artists Oliver points to in this clip are by no means representative of the great majority of Christian clergy, nor are their bloated "ministries" representative of the great majority of Christian churches.