Skepticum

Chicago Tribune published a list of “10 Things You Might Not Know About Famous Evangelists.”

Some of the ‘things’ are oddities, some of them are plain crazy and corrupted behavior, and some are well known, such as Tammy Faye’s tattooed-on eyebrows and lips (at least I could tell…).

Here are the three that paint a picture of no-common-sense evangelist power-mongery:

1. Zion, a city north of Chicago founded by Scottish evangelist John Alexander Dowie in 1902, at various times banned circuses, theaters, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, pork, politicians, doctors, drugstores, jazz, oysters, chop suey, tan-colored shoes, flirting, dancing, swearing, spitting and whistling on Sunday.

Ouch, imagine not owning a pair of tan-colored shoes. And what was this dude’s problem with doctors and drugstores?

5.  Georgia’s Rev. Creflo Dollar, whose ownership of a Rolls-Royce harks back to the quintessential “prosperity preacher” of the ’70s, Frederick Eikerenkoetter, better-known as Rev. Ike. The now-retired Ike owned a fleet of mink-appointed Rolls-Royces and said,”The best thing you can do for the poor is not to be one of them.”

Yeah, that’s one way of putting it….

8. Oral Roberts’ most famous fundraising effort came in 1987, when he said God would “take me home” if he didn’t raise $8 million for medical scholarships. Less well-known was another life-threatening experience he revealed the same year. Roberts said Satan had entered his bedroom and tried to strangle him, only to be chased away by Roberts’ wife, Evelyn.

I bet he was a feminist too.

Tags: evangelism, Religion

Trackback URI | Comments RSS