Yesterday was primary day, not only in Connecticut, where the media has been in a frenzy over the Democratic contest between Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont, but in Michigan as well. We had an interesting fight going on in the Republican primary for the Senate, where Keith Butler, who looks for all the world like a corrupt evangelist in the Jim Bakker mold, is running for the chance to face incumbent Debbie Stabenow in November. It looks like Michigan was smart enough to reject this looney.
The Triangle Foundation has put out a document branding Butler as a fanatic and documenting his fraudulent activities. Butler is the head of Word of Faith International Christian Center, a far right Christian church in Detroit with 21,000 members. All of the signs of corruption are there, from the meaningless degrees (he claims two of them, both from completely unaccredited institutes, with an honorary doctorate from an obscure Canadian Bible school) to the fact that his church refuses to allow anyone to view their financial records.
He has founded 81 ministries around the world over the years, none of which have complied with the voluntary transparency demanded by groups like Ministry Watch or the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. Ministry Watch has urged people to stop giving money to his organization because they will not make any financial statements available to ensure that funds are being used appropriately. And, to say the least, there is good reason to doubt them.
Butler and his wife live at the moment in a $1.3 million home in Troy, Michigan, for which they paid cash. In fact, over the last couple decades he has owned some 20 properties, almost all of them paid for in cash. They own several homes at the moment. Like other Word of Faith ministers like Robert Tilton, Butler preaches the "prosperity gospel", constantly browbeating their followers to "sow the seed of prosperty" by giving money to the church, which will supposedly be returned to them a hundred fold. They preach that godliness leads to wealth, thus stigmatizing the poor - if you aren't rich, you obviously just don't have enough faith or aren't a good enough Christian. This is pretty much a sure sign that you're dealing with a huckster.
Word of Faith is home to many such frauds, from Kenneth Copeland to Kenneth Hagin to Frederick Price to Benny Hinn. Even by mainstream Christian standards, their theology is bizarre. They preach, for example, that God is powerless to act in the world except what Christians allow him to do by invoking his name in prayer. They also practice faith healing and teach that sickness is a sign of a weak faith (this despite the fact that lots of Word of Faith pastors and their wives have come down with cancer, heart disease, and so forth).
Many orthodox Christian scholars have criticized Word of Faith as purveyors of heresy and even as a cult. Here is a good example. Hank Hanegraaff of the Christian Research Institute, in particular, has excoriated Word of Faith as an outright fraud. It looks like Michigan turned him down. Good going, Michigan.
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I can understand why someone would start a church like that, but what makes someone actually join one? It's so palpably stupid and fraudulent it's hard to believe anyone wouldn't see through it, and yet thousands of people clearly don't.
Word of Faith has been growing for a while now. Hard as it is to believe, some of the local groups are far worse than the Tiltons and Butlers who are better known.
Our local Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) is run as a cult. All property is owned by the church, and almost all of the followers work in one of several church-owned businesses. People live wherever the church designates. A group of "Elders" make up a sort of thought police, spying on members suspected of straying.
The pastor's wife is the real power, as she claims to receive prophesies from God, which are then binding upon the flock. Our group made Dateline about a decade back for some of their bizarre "healing" rituals, which mostly involve high decibels. Scary stuff. Local papers get to have a field day every time there is a custody trial after one parent leaves the church, then everyone forgets until the next trial.
Most of the pastors are trained at an Institute located in Oklahoma City which was originally connected to Oral Roberts, but I believe has long since been disowned.
Ginger: People join for the same reason they join any cult: They get a sense of belonging, a certain type of empowerment, some protection from issues they would rather not deal with. It's like being a teenager again, only without the perpetual boner.
Why do people play the lottery? Same reason as they join Word of Faith cults.
I wouldn't use one nut to disparage another nut and Hanegraaff certainly qualifies as a nut.
Butler and his wife live at the moment in a $1.3 million home in Troy, Michigan, for which they paid cash. In fact, over the last couple decades he has owned some 20 properties, almost all of them paid for in cash.
Wow, just like Jesus!