20 January 2006pressconnects.comDavid Rossie
Peter's admonition probably was not part of the lesson plan at the divinity school the Rev. Creflo A. Dollar Jr. attended, assuming he did attend one. Because while the Rev may not be able to take it with him, he is doing his best to enjoy the loot while still above ground.
The appropriately named theologian — he claims it's his real name — was the subject of a Page One story in last Sunday's New York Times. While his home base is Atlanta, Ga., he became part of all the news that's fit to print, apparently, on the basis of his Manhattan Center outpost, where he preaches to a congregation of approximately 5,000 true believers on Saturday nights.
Dollar's base is the World Changers Church, which dispenses what is known as "prosperity gospel." English translation: What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own.
According to the Times, Dollar's followers, many of them living at the poverty level, gladly fork over 10 percent of their weekly paychecks to the Rev in exchange for his assurance that, "If you sow a seed on a good ground, you can expect a harvest." It's what the Rev calls" opportunity for prosperity."
And while his parishioners may wait in vain for the seeds to take root and produce a bumper crop, Dollar's not waiting. Thanks to those donations and his book and television deals, he is prospering mightily. Is he ever: A mansion in Atlanta, a townhouse in Manhattan, assorted Rolls Royces and a Lear jet. The Rev is up to his ears in la dolce vita.
The Times, ever mindful of the need to be religiously as well as politically correct, took pains to point out that Dollar is not unique in passing the plate. Catholics, it notes, are urged to tithe, dividing their offerings between church and charity. Muslims pay zagat, and Jewish synagogues, like country clubs, have membership fees.
Of course, there are frauds like Oral Roberts who sell vials of oil from the Holy Land, guaranteed to cure everything from cancer to corns. And showmen like Benny Hinn, who can cure just about anything by giving the afflicted a swift whack on the forehead. These are money-grubbers of the worst kind, and then there are the Scientologists, who are in a crackpot league of their own.
I have made the acquaintance of many clerics over the years: priests, Catholic and Episcopal, rabbis, Protestant ministers of just about every denomination. To a man and woman they were and are thoroughly decent, intelligent individuals devoted to their callings and their flocks.
Not one of them, to my knowledge, owns a Rolls Royce or a Lear Jet, and if any one of them is residing in a multimillion-dollar townhouse, his or her location is as undisclosed as Dick Cheney's. In short, these are individuals doing what the Bible tells us is God's work, not for personal aggrandizement, but because it is the right thing to do.
I also doubt that Martin Luther King Jr. ever lived as high on the hog as does Brother Dollar.
If hustlers like Dollar and others like him were extracting money from their followers in exchange for submerged real estate or shares in an Alaskan tapioca mine, the feds would be down on them in a heartbeat.
But as long as all they're promising is a better time of it in the sweet bye and bye, they can get away with it. There's something wrong with that.
David Rossie is associate editor; his column is printed on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
