Eric Casagrande (29 Nov 2007)
"Larry King & Televangelists"
Hi John & All:
This past week Larry King has interviewed two of the six evangelists who are currently under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee. Paula White was on for about 30 minutes Monday night, and then Creflo Dollar was on for 10 minutes or so during the Tuesday program.
The Paula White interview covered, among other things, the sexual abuse she suffered growing up, the recent divorce from her husband of 18 years, Randy White, as well as the usual questions on the aforenoted Senate investigation.
I have nothing against Paula White and didn't even watch her so much when she was on local programming. She seems like a very emotional type person, which could be due to her early-life experiences. I was somewhat turned off by the clips they showed of her preaching at what seemed an African-American Women's conference. Her wildly bizzare animated style made me cringe, but judging from the King interview, this may have been a play with that type of an audience.
When the subject of the Senate investigation arose, I will admit to feeling a bit disappointed to see this otherwise nice lady suddenly pause, give a shocked poor-me look, and play the "persecuted Christian" card. But I do give credit to her for posting the ministry's 19-page audited financial statements (including footnotes), for the previous two years (2005 and 2006) on her website.
Unfortunately, it did not include any reference to Paula White's income, as did Joyce Meyer on her website (for the previous three years), which is important to the investigation. But in fairness she is at least showing more transparency than the remaining four ministries.
Creflo Dollar is another situation altogether ....
I am not sure who arranged what appeared to be a satellite interview, but for my taste he came across somewhat badly. Trying to give the appearance of calmness, Creflo Dollar seemed really tight. I don't recally seeing any guest blink their eyes so much during an interview.
His replies to Larry King's rather easy-going questions seemed contrived at times, and when pressed he would give a secondary answer, and when that didn't go well ... a third answer. In other situations I was left wondering how in the world Larry King managed to keep a straight face, because it seemed in my opinion that Creflo wasn't being entirely clean, and Larry really could have nailed him to the wall if he wasn't so polite a host.
By the way ... Creflo Dollar is not co-operating with the investigation.
When Larry King asked him about it, Creflo Dollar replied that the whole thing started off with a very nice letter of request from Senator Grassley. However it wasn't a valid request according to Dollar:
"... unfortuntately the letter doesn't have the power
of a committee subpoena, because you have to
have the backing of the Chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee, and you have to have the
majority vote of that committee ..."
Larry King responded by asking if Dollar and his ministry were complying, to which Creflo began fumbling for words, and finally said they would comply if they had a valid request, but in this case they turned everything over to their lawyers:
" ... Our counsel responded to his letter with
the letter from our counsel ..... and I'll just
have to allow ... uh ... the legal ... uh ...
argument to take place ..."
To this Larry King replied that he understood about the lawyers, but wanted to know if Creflo Dollar and his ministry were complying or not, at which point he finally got an answer to the question:
" .... Uh .... No .... we have not given him the
information that he requested ... uh ... uh ...
simply because we don't believe ... uh ... we
are ... uh ... in any legal obligation to do it ..."
To this, Larry King pressed: "So why not? He's a United States Senator and he's the Ranking Member of the Committee ... He's made, as you said, a very nicely written request ... You've already complied with the tax people. You've got nothing to hide. What have you got to lose?"
At this point the truth finally came out, when Dollar indirectly stated that he did not want the public to know his income or source.
Gee ... I wonder why not? Joyce Meyer gave a full and complete accounting.
Larry King then suggested to Dollar that maybe by opening up and by coming clean, he would look good to the public for his honesty.
Well this is a good suggestion, and a no-brainer to anyone even half-hearted in their Christian walk. Dollar was obviously trapped. Stuttering a bit he came up with a questionable, if not semi-revealing response:
" ... Some of those [ministry] donors really don't
want their names exposed to the public."
Now initially this sounds pretty good. Creflo Dollar is looking to protect those who give money to his ministry. But protect them from what? The data which has been requested by the Senate Finance Committee would not lead to the disemination of any private information concerning the day-to-day donors to the ministry (i.e. the working stiffs; the pensioners; etcetera).
The only people who might possibly be revealed in the course of the Senate investigation, are the "bling-bling" donors. The elite few who might have the wherewithal to cut a check for $20,000 to $100,000 or more. Someone who might give another type of very expensive donation in personal property.
Now if this cash or personal property were given to the ministry, then it's not so much a problem. But if it's given to Creflo Dollar personally, then it has the potential to become a major problem. The donors could very well, in fact, be other ministries.
Which may (or may not) explain why he just doesn't honestly comply.
Another issue which Larry King touched upon, was the subject of Dollar's $2.5 million apartment owned in New York City, and his estate in Georgia, which is worth (according to Creflo), close to another $2 million.
Here things got a little sticky. Larry asked him straight-out if any of the money to purchase the New York City apartment came from the ministry. In response, Creflo said (among other things):
" ... The basis of my money came from my
businesses ... I ...uh ... had a job before I
went into the ministry ... I used to be a
therapist ... and ... uh ... When you invest
properly, and you do the proper things
with your money ... uh ... uh ... uh ... I try
to practice and comply with the IRS ... and
that is to keep the finances of the ministry
separate ... from ... uh ... personal spending
... uh ... uh ... and that's very important in
order to comply with IRS regulations."
Now this is the sticky part. Creflo graduated from college in 1984. He then worked as a therapist until 1987, when he quit his job and went full-time into his ministry. So that basically gave him three years (not including day-to-day living expenses and payroll deductions), to save up money that lead to real estate deals worth nearly $4.5 million.
A ludicrous suggestion of course. It seemed obvious by additional questions that Larry King didn't buy into this idea of saving for three years and getting all this real estate in return. Additional money had to come from somewhere over the years ... and I believe Larry King was wondering about what kind of salary Creflo has drawn from donations to the ministry. Of course the other question is where did he get the money to also put together his unnamed businesses?
I used to watch Creflo Dollar a lot on television, but I won't do so again. I really do have to wonder why the guy chooses to fight a battle he cannot win against the federal government, when doing the honest thing as Joyce Meyer is doing seems so much easier -- and a better Chrisitan testimony.
See ya in the air,
Eric