Found this astounding article that opens up the research on how religious organizations provide a safe haven for 34 billion in fraud and theft ANNUALLY! Here are a few excerpts. It will blow your mind!!
The January 2011 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research reported that “Christian religious leaders will commit an estimated $34 billion in financial fraud in 2011 while $31 billion will be spent on global missions.” Researchers from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimate that Christian religious leaders will commit $90 million in financial crimes daily and the fraud is growing at a rate of 5.97% each year. If the researchers are correct, religious financial fraud among Christians will almost double in 14 years to $60 billion annually by 2025. 1
Dr. David Barrett, the first editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia and a researcher for the Center, has been studying religious financial fraud for more than 20 years. According to Dr. Todd Johnson, the Center’s director, these statistics were the result of Barrett “developing a balance sheet for global Christianity.” Barrett was “trying to understand the totality of Christian finance.” 2
Is this for real?
Here’s another excerpt
Here is a small sample of religious financial scandals from around the world:
- Brazil: Bishop Edir Macedo, head of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and 9 of his associates have been charged with embezzling more than $2 billion. 4
- Canada: Televangelists Ron and Reynold Mainse allegedly recruited investors in a Ponzi scheme. 5
- China: A whistleblower goes to jail for speaking out after donations for earthquake victims were stolen. 6
- Italy: Police confiscated 23 million euros in a Vatican bank account as part of an investigation into money laundering. 7
- Ukraine: Pastor Sunday Adelaja was charged with fraud in promoting a business venture to his congregation that lost $100 million. 8
- United Kingdom: Church treasurer Derek Klein embezzled funds to pay for a stamp collection. 9
- United States: Trent Huddleston, former senior accountant at Oral Roberts University, alleges that more than $1 billion was money laundered annually by members of the Oral Roberts University board. 10
The whole article is so eye-popping! There is much more. You must read! After reading, I almost want nothing to do with church. I don’t even want to be called the ‘church’. I don’t want to be called a ‘Christian’. This is so embarrassing! How much more anti-Christ can you be? Maybe the 501c-3, non-profit, religious machine is the depiction of the anti-christ?
All along Tim LaHaye has us looking for some attractive European man with hidden horns and fangs, when we’ve created an institution that looks like Jesus, talks like Jesus, and seems like Jesus, but resembles the anti Jesus. How much more anti Christ can you be than a ravenous wolf dressed as a sheep? What does a real follower of Jesus do? This certainly puts me in a quandary.