Televangelist is all smiles as he takes ownership of a brand new 3 million dollar private plane.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

Controversial televangelist Kenneth Copeland was all smiles on the tarmac near his Fort Worth, Texas mega church as he took delivery of his new $3million Gulfstream V private jet. 

'This is a big deal, this is a big plane' he says in a video posted on his ministry's website, before grinning into the lens and asking viewers, 'do you see this? do you see this? I hope so, you bought it. You and Jesus.' 

Copeland, who is the head of the Kenneth Copeland Ministries and has his own TV show, bought the jet off Tyler Perry.

Kenneth Copeland isn't the first mega minister to ask his flock to pay for a private plane. 

In 2015, Reverend Creflo Dollar raised funds to buy a $70million G650. At first his request for $300 donation from each follower was met with outrage. Later the church decided that the plane was necessary for Creflo's ministry work. 

And in 2016, Copeland and fellow televangelist Jesse Duplantis defended their use of private planes on Copeland's TV show 'Believer's Voice of Victory'. 

On that show Copeland called flying commercial getting in 'a long tube with a bunch of demons'. 

"Hey, are you looking at this? Do you see this?  I hope so, you bought it. Ha ha ha."

Any rational person would see this asshole giddily making those remarks and think he was mocking his supporters for allowing him to waste their hard earned money on a private plane, but the people who send him money will just keep right on sending him money.

I sometimes get a little blowback for suggesting that faith in religion is what helps people like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump gain influence and power, but right here you have exhibit A.

Here is a guy, at least as full of shit as Donald Trump, and he has convinced low information TV viewers that he talks directly to God, and that God wants him to live a life of luxury on their dime.

You can safely bet any amount money that the people who bought him this plane, also pulled the lever for Donald Trump in 2016, and will eagerly vote for him again in 2020.

Personally I think that donating to televangelists should be recognized as a sign of insanity or mental incompetency.

These assholes live in opulence on the dollars donated to them by the elderly, the ignorant, and the desperate.

And that Kenneth Copeland is a particularly pernicious POS.

I guess this is just another example of how religion makes people's lives better.

You know if those people are willing to use it to manipulate and prey upon the weak that is. 

Televangelist explains that flying on private jets is necessary because you can't talk to God on those "demon filled tubes" they call commercial flights.

Courtesy of the Bipartisan Report:  

On a recent episode of Believers Voice of Victory, Kenneth Copeland and Jesse Duplantis asserted that they need their private jets, with Copeland asserting a true minister cannot talk to God on a commercial flight: 

“You couldn’t have done that on an airliner. Stand up and say “What’d you say, Lord? Okay? No? Yeah? And the guy sitting over there, saying, “What the hell does he think he’s doing?” You can’t do that! No, no…” 

Copeland and Duplantis also claimed that a private jet such as the one owned by Oral Roberts is essential because it “protects the anointing.” 

But the essence of the message from Brothers Copeland and Duplantis can be summed up thusly: Demons are traveling on the commercial airliners we all use. Yes, demons. Copeland was babbling on about how it’s a “dope-filled world” when he finally declared he simply cannot, will not “get in a long tube with a bunch of demons.”

You know at the beginning of that video this Jesse Duplantis guy acts out a conversation that he claims to have had with God, as if there was NOTHING at all insane about such a thing. 

And apparently millions of people who tune in to hear this bullshit agree with him.

Holy shitballs the one time that I was standing in an enclosed space where a person suddenly started talking to God, I was in a mental health facility and the guy was having a psychotic break.

Our response was to keep him safe while he went through the episode and then to up his medication in order to control his outbursts.

We did NOT buy him his own private plane.

People are fucking idiots.

John Oliver took on Televangelists in his show this weekend, and it is the greatest thing ever.

Here is what the Daily Beast had to say about this episode.

Your Uncle Gryphen has long been fascinated with televangelists and used to watch not only Robert Tilton in the 80's, but also Jimmy Swaggert, Jim and Tammy Bakker, and of course Jerry Falwell.

I of course hate watched them, and what I saw on those Sunday morning viewings only made me dislike religion, and the assholes who use it to take advantage of the simple minded, with a white hot passion.

I think back then if somebody had asked me what I thought the future held for such obvious religious charlatans I would have said that it was very unlikely they would survive into the new millennium, because people were becoming better educated and capable of seeing through the bullshit.

Damn, I hate it when I'm wrong.

It's official. Sarah Palin has finally morphed into a full on televangelist. Without the television part of course. Is there an "intervangelist?"

Courtesy of Sister Mary Batshit Crazy:

Those honoring the National Day of Prayer this week are committed to our nation's biblical foundation, and we thank selfless Americans who protect this Christian nation’s freedom of religion! In reverence to the Lord's grace and mercy we will never allow God to be booted from the public square. The public acknowledgement of our need for God’s blessing has been with us from the beginning – from the eve of our Revolution, when the First Continental Congress called for “a day of publick humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” to 1952, when Congress established the National Day of Prayer. It was signed it into law so we would “turn to God in prayer,” knowing our need for His hand of protection and guidance. Today, more than ever, we need the Almighty’s mercy, and we are actually invited by Him to humbly ask that He bless this land. Please pray that He will navigate us through these troubling times, dedicating ourselves and our great nation back to Him. 

- Sarah Palin

Well Hallelujah and pass the sacramental wine. 

I guess with everybody from Ted Cruz to Mike Huckabee pimping religion politics like a sweaty revival tent preacher in the bowels of the Bible Belt, Palin felt she had to turn the Christianity up to eleven.

You know I have long felt that this is Palin's true calling.

After all when you are looking to grift from the easiest marks on the planet, Christianity is the religious Astroglide that makes separating the morons from their money friction free and the penetration into their warm and welcoming trust centers relatively painless.

Now all Palin needs to get are a couple of snakes to handle during her video talks, a prayer answering hotline, and an online store to sell actual bonafide splinters from the cross that Jesus died on and blessed holy water that can cure cancer and make barren women pregnant, and she's in business.

And if she can do for Christianity what she has already done to for the Republican party, well that's all the better.

Members of church upset that their televangelist leader forces them to have abortions and vasectomies, and sexually abuses their children. Clear case of nitpicking.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

Former members of Grace Cathedral have accused televangelist Ernest Angley of forcing them to have abortions, and vasectomies. And they said that he sexually abused boys in the church, which he has denied. 

In the first part of a six-part series on Sunday, the Akron Beacon Journal said that church members had provided it with a recording of a recent church service where 93-year-old televangelist Ernest Angley addressed accusations that he had inappropriately touched a former pastor. 

“I’m not a homosexual. God wouldn’t use a homosexual like he uses me. He calls me his prophet, and indeed I am," Angley explained. "They called Jesus a homosexual, did you know that? And still do. Because he was with men." 

As for the claim that Angley encouraged men in the church to have vasectomies, he said that he had "helped so many of the boys down through the years." 

“They had their misgivings," he recalled. "Sure, I’d have them uncover themselves, but I did not handle them at all." 

"And I would tell them how that would work. And they’d have to watch it. I’d have some of them come back to me that I felt needed to. And I would tell them, I would look at them, their privates — I, so I could tell how they were swelling," the pastor told the congregation. "I was a farm boy. We thought nothing about undressing. We didn’t know about homosexuals. We talked about women." 

Becky Roadman, who left the church last year and moved to Georgia, told the paper that "none of us have kids because he makes all the men get fixed." 

“You’re not allowed to have babies there," she insisted. 

Angley also pushed women to have abortions, according to multiple former members. One of those who left, Angelia Oborne, said that Angley advised a friend to think of the fetus inside her as “a tumor.”

I know that people get irritated with me for blaming this kind of thing on religion, but let's face it would any of these people have allowed this person to exert such influence on them if they were not gullible enough to believe that he had Jesus on speed dial?

This guy is a grade "A" pervert, and masochist, hiding behind the comforting camouflage of Christianity like so many before him. 

Paul Crouch, the king of prosperity theology, finally gets his chance to meet God.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Paul Crouch, the televangelist who built what's been called the world's largest Christian broadcasting network, has died. He was 79. 

Crouch died at his home in Orange, Calif., on Saturday after a decade-long fight with degenerative heart disease, his grandson Brandon Crouch told The Associated Press.

"He was an incredible businessman, entrepreneur, visionary; he built something that impacted the world," he said. 

Crouch began his broadcasting career while studying theology at Central Bible Institute and Seminary in his native Missouri by helping build the campus' radio station. He moved to California in the early 1960s to manage the movie and television unit of the Assemblies of God before founding Trinity Broadcast Network in 1973 with his wife, Jan. 

They grew the network into an international Christian empire that beams prosperity gospel programming to every continent but Antarctica around the clock. The programming promises that if the faithful sacrifice for their belief, God will reward them with material wealth. 

Based in Costa Mesa, the network says it has 84 satellite channels and more than 18,000 television and cable affiliates as well as a Christian amusement park in Orlando. 

The Crouches faced criticism for what critics say was their extravagant lifestyle. Ministry watchdogs have long questioned how TBN spends the hundreds of millions of tax-exempt donations they receive from viewers. 

Last year, their granddaughter and her husband's uncle filed lawsuits alleging $50 million in financial improprieties at the network and detailed opulent spending on private jets and 13 mansions and homes around the U.S. for the Crouch family's use. 

Janice Bethany Crouch. Could she be Sarah Palin's fashion role model?

I don't know if I have shared this before but I used to be obsessed with televangelists, and watched their shows religiously, if you will pardon the pun.

Oh I was not a believer in those days, but I WAS fascinated with how these people, who were clearly charlatans, managed to manipulate so many millions of people into believing they had access to God and to send them their money.

My favorite ones in those days were Jim and Tammy Bakker, Falwell, and Jimmy Swaggert.

I saw Paul Crouch on the PTL Club with Jim And Tammy Faye all of the time, and used to think he was more than likely out of his damn mind. But then I thought that about a number of those old time gospel grifters.

I watched with immense glee as the scandals destroyed first the Bakkers and then Jimmy Swaggert, and much later Ted Haggard. In my mind their public humiliation should have helped people see the folly of sending these snake oil salesmen their hard earned money.

And yet still there are still people out there sending their life savings to Jack Van Impe, Franklin Graham, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Joel Olsteen, and numerous others, in the belief that they are buying their way into heaven.

Makes me sad to think that there are so many people who spend their lives focused on the afterlife, and do not take the time to really appreciate the here and now. 

Measles outbreak traced to mega-church where televangelist preaches that vaccinations cause autism. Probably just a coincidence.

Courtesy of Dead State:  

Texas health officials have zeroed-in on a megachurch — which has a history of preaching against vaccinations — as the point of origin for a measles outbreak. 

According to a report from ABC’s WFAA 8, a congregant contracted the virus while visiting a foreign country and then attended a service at the church before he knew he was infected. This Thursday, the Tarrant County Health Department announced its 11th measles diagnosis traced to the man, making it the 16th case to emerge statewide. As a result, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services issued a measles outbreak alert — an unprecedented development given that the virus has nearly been eradicated by vaccines for decades. 

Meanwhile this Sunday at Eagle Mountain International Church, Pastor Terri Copeland Pearsons was forced to dedicate most of her sermon to the fact that 11 of the 16 measles cases had been linked to church attendees. 

“We’re going to talk about some things affecting our church. And as we go through it, we remain steadfast that Jesus is more than enough,” Pearsons told the congregation. “There has been a […] confirmed case of the measles from the Tarrant County Health Department. And that’s a really big deal in that America — the United States has been essentially measles-free for, I think it’s 10 years. And so when measles pops up anywhere else in the United States, the health department — well, you know, it excites them.”

Here's the kicker Copeland Parsons is the daughter of televangelist Kenneth Copeland, who has been warning his flock about the dangers of vaccinations and promoting the idea that they are linked to autism, while promoting the power of faith healing.

In short Copeland's ignorance about science, and his proclamation that faith can overcome anything, has put his daughter's congregation in danger and forced her to essentially cover for his stupidity.  

And this my friends is why we get our health information from doctors and scientists and NOT from Evangelical preachers.

Religious faith cannot protect you from prosecution. Especially for murdering your own child.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

A deeply religious Wisconsin couple who prayed over their dying daughter rather than seek medical help were properly convicted of homicide, the state Supreme Court decided Wednesday. 

Kara Neumann, 11, of Weston, Wis., died March 23, 2008 — Easter Sunday — of complications of untreated juvenile onset diabetes. 

According to the case records, Kara had been showing symptoms of exhaustion and dehydration for more than a week, but her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, refused to take her to a pediatrician, and decided to respond to her illness with prayer, not medicine. 

A pediatrician testified that Kara's disease was highly treatable and that her chances of survival were high until "well into the day of her death." 

The Neumanns don't belong to any particular church, but they identify as Pentecostals, according to factual findings in the court record, none of which the Neumanns disputed. Some Pentecostals — but by no means all — believe that prayer and strong religious belief can cure all illnesses, a tradition that helped give rise to famous "faith healers" like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn.

Sometimes I think that certain people should not be allowed to breed. And these kind of religious zealots are at the top of that list.

The depth of their religious deception was incredible.

Dale Neumann testified that he knew Kara was sick but never thought she might die. In fact, he testified that he thought that Jesus would bring her back from the dead, as he did with Lazarus in the Gospel of John. 

That is pathological. 

And the Benny Hinns and Oral Roberts of the world are complicit in reinforcing that pathology, and should be punished accordingly.

Well great, now I'm afraid of feminists.

Wow, child killing lesbian witches, who knew? 

And here I thought they just wanted to be treated equally to their male counterparts.