Kenneth Copeland fascinates me. He radiates pure evil, and I'm not alone in feeling that. I try to imagine what his followers see in him, but I simply can't manage it.
I've always found megachurches to be questionable at best. When you commercialize religion it becomes meaningless, no sense of local, real community to rely on.
I agree, but must say the scary part is they work by fostering that very sense of community you mention. A sense that one is a part of the 'right' group. It's a false relationship, of course, built on manipulation and money going one way, but for those caught up, it might as well be a cult for the difficulty of detaching.
I'm honestly surprised that regular churches aren't speaking out against them, surely they can't ALL be OK with the practises of people like Copeland or Osteen?
Come in, wake up... the church has been a financial institution for literally as long as it has existed. This is nothing new. It's rotting, from the roots to its core, and needs to be dealt with as such
Two cousins of mine where musicians for the PTL. Even when Jim and Tammy fell from grace, they refused to believe the accusations. These megachurches are barely distinguishable from cults.
They follow most of the same playbook, so yeah, they're predatory and instill strict control over their tribe. I'm sure sexual abuse is quite common in these organizations, as this control over the individuals is of utmost importance to obtaining & wielding power.
Great video! And as a former Catholic seminarian, I'd remind you that the Pope lives in a palace. And as a seminarian at Notre Dame (South Bend, IN), I saw how a vow of "poverty" meant little while living in what amounted to a country club.
I still believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Dont affiliate with the church where I live now. Do pray every day and night. maintain the Rosery. and pray forgiveness and gratitude every day. But am guarded on people in churches. Faith is simple, doctrine complicates the relationship between myself and God!
Yeah but the popes palace is owned by the church over all, not his personal residence. This pope has been incredibly frugal as well compared to the others.
@@gamerjaqi7873Does it really matter who owns it? The institution he represents provides him with that palace and all the amenities. He still gets to enjoy them. The pope might have been more frugal then the rest but that means nothing when we’re speaking of that kind of wealth.
@ believe what you like. There is a difference between this current pope and the Joel osteens of the world. He isn’t flaunting the wealth. He still lives as he did as much as possible. I respect that. He isn’t going after people’s money and promising them blessings in return.
It helps if you think of The Pope as at once the King of Vatican City, along with his many, many, many, titles like Bishop of Rome. He's also a CEO if you consider the Holy See as a massive corporation. He can always claim that he owns nothing, but then his office gives him all the stuff he wants. Also, the current pope sure isn't as shockingly vile as many of his predecessors, but then again, one could remember that he could have hired a good PR agency. Also, I studied in a Jesuit school and college so grew up in deep reverence for the church. I became an atheist over time.
I’m a Christian and I’ve always been suspicious of megachurches where the pastors live in multimillion dollar mansions and live luxury. If you use the old saying, “what would Jesus do” I think Jesus would want you to use that money from donations to help the less fortunate or help in the community. It’s really disgusting to use religion to make money.
Most Christians are scared and saddened by this sort of stuff. However the bible does teach that pastors should be able to make a living, but the definition of ‘living’ is probably open to interpretation
Christ said to enter the kingdom of heaven you must give up your wealth and follow him he also said the poor woman who gave her last two cents have given more than any rich person before her because she gave all she had Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse. St. Maximus the Confessor
Mega churches are part of the reason for years that I didn't trust churches or clergy. Then I met some regular ordinary clergy at a coffee group in my local area, and they've managed to earn my respect tenfold.
Fun fact, John Oliver on the TV show “Last Week Tonight” started his own, legally recognized church called “ Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption”. He received thousands in tax free donations and mocked mega churches. It is hilarious and well worth a look into.
The only thing I can think about when I see Osteen is the fact that he refused to let people use his church to shelter them from a flood. Because, you know, that's what Jesus would have done, right?
He causes an instant visceral reaction every time I see him. The perfectly coifed hair and perfectly white teeth are absolutely off putting. And yeah, f that guy. Meanwhile Muslim congregations were opening their doors and feeding as many as they could during that time.
8:10 I’m an accountant in the US. I would like to clarify that they are in fact taxed on their sales. This is considered Unrelated Business Income and is taxed at 21% which is the same as our rate for corporations and most other not for profits are likewise subject to this tax.
Sure. Then they "donate" all proceeds to their own "charitable foundation", that's now written off as a donation which is no longer taxed. And the church keeps on banking.
@@senorslowbrz Unrelated business income applies to activities that 1. Are a trade or business broadly defined 2. Regularly carried on (usually met if once per month or more) 3. And not related in substance to the exempt function (in this case being a church). There are notable exceptions to this but UBI tax can apply to many more potential activities than sales.
@robsquared2 Thanks for your reply. Excuse my long response but I wanted to be thorough. See my reply to senorslowbrz below for the definition of UBI. The purpose of the UBI Tax is to prevent exempt organizations (like 501(C)(3)s) from having an unfair advantage over regular businesses by being able to run whatever business they want tax free so it can be pretty broad to protect private businesses. As far as whether they are audited, there are two kinds of audits that are relevant here: Financial Statement vs. Tax. What an audit is and its purpose are not well understood by the general public so I will provide a definition. You can think of accounting as "money tracking" and an audit as "checking money tracking". That's all it is. The purpose of a financial statement audit is to reasonably sure (high but not 100%) that their books aren't wrong in any way that matters due to fraud or errors. It's to help them with their accounting not to shake them down or treat them with suspicion. The purpose of a tax audit would be to check how you did your accounting and how you went about putting together your return(s) in order to ensure you paid the right amount of tax. As far as whether churches are audited, whether they get a FS audit is their own business and there are many reasons why they may or may not get an audit done. This is the same for private businesses which are not publicly traded (public companies must have FS audits done annually). Whether the IRS decides to audit a church is the IRS's business. People don't tend to want to be audited by the IRS. Personally, I would be concerned if a church the size of Joel Osteen's did not get a financial statement audit done on a regular basis because they have the resources to do so (audits can get expensive). As to whether churches are audited by the IRS, of course, they can be audited by the IRS just like any other organization. A special thing to note is that they are restricted, just like other 501(c)(3)s , when it comes to political activities and this is where they oftentimes have to be careful as they can get their exempt status revoked if they're not. Perhaps, this influences the behavior of some of the churches in the video. Though I'm inexperienced in the field, I'm halfway through my master's in accounting and would suspect that the IRS would try to focus its limited audit resources on those churches which are more bang for their buck. Sorry again for such a long response but I hope it was interesting.
Ex-Christian here. I’ll always be grateful I generally went to smaller churches because even though the faith doesn’t resonate with me anymore, it was also much more genuine because it was based on the attendance of local community and a staff who were similar to the rest of us in terms of income and assets. I don’t ever recall any of my church leaders being rich, which I think is infinitely valuable because money can corrupt.
You have nailed it, Simon. Though I am a man of faith, full disclosure, I am not a Christian. I have always had criticisms, but I attempt to respect the faith of any honest and honorable believer of their respective faith. As for these "megachurches" you have shown here: there is nothing honest or honorable about them in the least. This is an industry as you point out. What is more, there are a significant number of smaller churches working on the same model as these that are hoping to break out into the big time. It is disgraceful! Moreso as it seems many (most?) of them live very scandalous lives themselves. Though you did mention Jerry Falwell (a man who for a time was the public face of American morality), his son took over his church/university/media empire and resigned in disgrace once the three-ways between himself, wife, and a Miami pool-boy became known. They are all compromised. That said, a humble pastor of a church (even if a "reasonably" financially successful one) who holds himself to the highest moral standard, who asks for money to improve the church or expand their school rather than enrich themselves... I can respect that sort, and I have known such as that. But evangelical Americans tend to have a short memory and are too easily led around by the hog-ring of cultish church environment. I know of a church that required your annual tax statement to join and sent a monthly bill for "their" ten percent... gross, not net. Yet it was tolerated for many years; and perhaps still. It is disgraceful that a conservatively independent populace as churchgoers are, sacrifice their self-determination and freedom of thought for someone who claims you basically have to pay for salvation. The Roman Catholic church once did that, selling indulgences. It raised the ire of a certain German priest and led to the Thirty Years' War. In my opinion it is nigh impossible to separate the religious from the political. Your moral values inform your political values and how you vote. But when a candidate of either party speaks at a church to drum up votes, that line between faith and politics is entirely erased. I do advocate for a more honorable, ethical and (dare I say) more moral society. But once you openly declare your political position from the pulpit then you introduce dogma to the political process. This is a slippery slope as different Christian denominations are just as ready to condemn one-another to damnation as they are the followers of any other faith. In short... it has become a ridiculous but dangerous mess.
My husband and I attended a church that had a membership of 1500. I was told by one of the pastors that since I was a woman I was supposed to do as he said without question. I told him, "Not happening," and we were out the door so fast our sneakers were smoking. We still love Jesus, but we're leery of most of His people.
I never understood how people are fully behind these mega pastors. I heard of a pastor in Louisiana who asked his followers to buy him a luxurious watch and called broke those who didn’t donate to him
You're confusing your mega rich pastors- the one you are referring to was from Kansas City. The Louisiana luxury watch pastor story involved Jesse Duplantis. His church is in Destrehan, Louisiana, outside New Orleans. He bragged about his watch costing more than his second house during a service. If you'd like to see his current home, it's at the corner of Ormond Blvd and River Rd in Destrehan, LA. Except that if you street view it, he has had the entire structure blurred out on street view. It's a massive, white two story plantation style mansion with full wrap around porches and huge columns all the way around.
I grew up in a "smaller" megachurch which was built to seat around 3500 people, though they only averaged around 2k attendees per weekend over 3-4 services 15-20 years ago when I was a kid. But now they're up to about 4-5k attendees per weekend at their main building and have expanded out to several other locations in the area within a 30 mile radius. My grandparents were actually founding members in the 80s and my grandpa was the one who convinced a pastor friend of his to be the first lead pastor. I went through some personal changes between high school and college where I stopped really believing in the religion but having connections at the church I worked there as a custodian for a few years through college and that's when I got to see more of the behind the scenes stuff that really turned me off. Mostly having to do with spending. That's when I saw the super nice cars the pastors would drive. The new lead pastor who started his tenure off by spending a lot of money on remodeling his office which was basically like a studio apartment with couches, a large 65" flat screen TV, which that alone would've probably been in the $4k-$7k price range at that time 13 years ago, and got an Xbox One for his sons to play in his office on the TV. He had a fridge, sink, and microwave in his office so he wouldn't have to go into the main office to use the stuff in there. And also had his own private bathroom while 30+ other office employees had to all share one or use one of the public restrooms if someone was in there. And his kids were some of the most unpleasant people, always having an attitude and looking down on others with a "do you know who I am/my dad is?" mindset. One of those kids is now the lead pastor at one of the new church locations they opened up. And it was just a terrible place full of gossip meant to shame people for slipping in their religious beliefs. I remember one office worker had apparently had an affair and when the leaders at the church found out they had a meeting of everyone who worked at the church, including us custodians, where they publicly condemned the guy and made him give an apology speech and then fired him. And it just felt so gross to be a witness to it, like yeah, cheating is gross/wrong but it had nothing to do with me. I didn't need to be there to be part of his humiliation. I was just there to clean the shit off the walls. But it was a mandatory meeting so I had to go in on one of my days off to attend. My parents still attend, but what I saw really grossed me out. I can't imagine what goes on behind the scenes at the bigger ones where they have more money to corrupt. My grandparents would be rolling in their graves if they could see what was going on there, now.
I would really hope you would give church and Christianity a second try. What the mega church teaches is far from the true gospel. I recommend Lutheranism. We aren’t uber liberal (except for the Evengelical Lutheran Church of America) like Methodists. And aren’t political like baptists. We preach Faith alone through Scripture alone, only through the Grace alone, of Christ alone.
@whoarewe7515 In this video he said that a megachurch is one with an attendance over 2k. He didn't specify if that was in one sermon or total per week. The top 50 largest megachurches on wikipedia have the smallest number of attendees at 10k. So I said what I said because it qualified based on Simon's words but there are definitely plenty that are bigger.
@@ssloestj.4008 I've looked at religion as an adult and I just don't buy it. Thousands of religions in the world and all of their believers believe theirs is the right one and they can't all be correct. Add in that however many 1000s of years ago humans were less knowledgeable and just trying to make sense of how the world worked while also trying to maintain a civilization and you end up mixing deities, origin stories, and rules of society together into a religion that snowballs out of control with multiple branches based on the same religion because not even everyone in a religion can read their scriptures without different interpretations in a modern world. It's all just a way of trying to cope with the world while being amenable to the ways it controls how you can live your life.
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." I always read that to mean that Jesus believed in a separation of church and state too.
The problem being what people believe belongs to God. If they preach the prosperity gospel and believe that all of your wealth is a blessing from God, than what do they owe to Caesar?
@@Fredbats politicians and world leaders are worthless the only leaders I have listen to is our lord and savior first and then people important to me who worship Christ
Just a fun reminder that you can report churches to the IRS and have their tax exempt status revoked if they break the requirements of that exemption. I.e being overtly political
The IRS will do absolutely nothing about it. They are too scared of the political fallout. Once again, religion gets a pass because the faithful are dangerous.
Just remember that your minister may put his/her interest above yours. Most if not all preachers want obedient and pliant flocks, and certainly not independent thinkers.
I attended Lakewood, in Houston, when I was a teenager. This was BEFORE Joel Osteen took over. His dad, John Osteen, was a real human's human. He never tried to take everyone's money just to take it. He gave money to local public schools to buy textbooks. John accepted donations every year to build present and food boxes for at risk families every Christmas. He even used church donations to buy school supplies for underprivileged kids. I miss him.
I attend a “megachurch” also… and the pastor is very real and down to earth… the money that’s donated to the church ALWAYS go towards those who TRULY need it… the unemployed, underemployed, schools in underserved areas, over seas to countries underdeveloped… a lot of charity causes all around… so the church DOES live up to their mission… I’m not sure how the others are run, but the one I attend is the TRUTH…
@@lolliannbruce7783 there's always going to be some good ones or good to start off, there's always going to be bad ones, and there's always going to be scammers from the start. One simple way to tell is looking at how the leaders live. Do they live in million dollar mansions, drive luxury cars, private jet or yachts, live the good lives? If they are then chances are the money collected is going to them.
I'd say the lines between faith and business aren't even blurred. They're erased completely. These things are IMO not churches by any reasonable definition of the word. Their "services" are nothing that would have been recognized in previous centuries as anything remotely resembling worship. And here's the thing: These churches are so pervasive in the US that they have essentially become the face of Christianity to non-Christians. When you hear someone calling for churches to be taxed, these are the churches they're thinking of. Their very existence harms Christianity's reputation even more than the religion itself would otherwise merit.
“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” but those who preach in His name lay their heads in $10M mansions.
Meanwhile, in the Orthodox Church, a lot of our priests have to work secular jobs in order to make ends meet. Our bishops may also wear fancy vestments but they are also hardly living in luxury.
I think everyone attending these Megachurches forgot the part in the Bible where Jesus went into the Temple and started flipping tables, wh!pping people and yelling at them for using the church for monetary gain. 😅
I've been a former member of and attended several churches ranging from one large enough they had to hold 3 separate services in order to accommodate the number of members to one where there is maybe 60 or so members plus staff. While I have always loved Hillsong's music I could never be comfortable attending a mega church. It always seems less a Sunday service and more a concert or performance. I prefer churches where everyone actually knows everyone, and the pastor knows you by name. That to me is more in line to sense of community a church is supposed to provide in conjunction to religious understanding.
Those big, fancy churches tell me immediately that the leader is much more concerned about his/her earthly pleasures than storing up any treasure (so to speak) in Heaven. Sure, a clean, safe, consistent building in which to meet is highly useful and I have no beef with that. But when it's flashy? Shouldn't that money be used to take care of those who are less fortunate? I'm pretty sure I read that Christ said several versions of that. I don't recall him saying to establish massive, elaborately garnished palaces and let people starve. And I don't understand how so many people fall for it.
I used to volunteer at an old people's home. The only channels accessible on their TVs were Christian channels/megachurches. The people staying there were brainwashed. One of the old folks I used to tell me we need to donate everything we have to these churches as the devil is trying to destroy them.
Salvation is literally supposed to be free, that’s kinda the point. I’m eternally grateful that God reached me outside of any church. If I hadn’t experienced that personal connection I might have confused my relationship with God with an institution. Too many of those institutions are an abomination.
Salvation isn’t free, like everything else in this world, it’s both conditional and natural. For example to have a house, you need space, materials, and labor. If you were to take away just one component, the house would not “exist”therefore it is conditional. But abodes are a consequential as a result of living organisms manipulating their environment to facilitate their survival. Almost every being that “can” almost always “will” because it’s just that much more efficient and beneficial to have a house or home than not. Like this it is natural.
@stellamcqueen4809 I guess it depends on whether those environments are genuinely reaching people rather than leading them astray, but supposing that some people are genuinely reached, it’s not to the credit of the minister. The apostles had the same conundrum in the first century and their response was: as long as Jesus is being preached, it doesn’t matter what the motivations of the preacher are, God is still able to reach people through that unwitting scumbag. They preach to line their own pockets, God highjacks their scam to create meaningful and lasting connections. The real question is, what ends up happening to the unscrupulous ministers? Jesus said in Matthew 7 that the day will come when those guys will try to ingratiate themselves with the Lord to weasel their way into paradise, making all sorts of claims about how they cast out demons and prophesied on his behalf. Jesus says; “I never knew you. Depart from me.”
@@stellamcqueen4809 I see the idea of God as kind of like a game master to humans or something like GTA game. There are cheat codes in GTA or you can play the game without killing civilians etc BUT it is all still within the parameters of the Game Master. Therefore, I think morality only applies to God's creatures since you can't really call someone "evil" if you live within him(I see GOD as the observable and the not observable universe as a whole being). It's like the billions and trillions of bacteria, viruses and germs inside our bodies vieing for supremacy. Am I suppose to say their "evil" when they are fighting 24/7 too? I'd call God evil IF there are other game masters that wanted all living creatures to be at peace with each other and GOD DOES NOT but then again God wouldn't be called "God" if there are other game masters now would it? I see "GOD" as a child that designs different sets of legos and that we are just a small part of it like earth and the living things within it. Kind of like those aliens in the last scene of Men In Black. That's how I see God.
I went to a megachurch as a kid (Compassion Christian, in Georgia), and I have to say, I understand why people like them. You really feel like it's more than just a Sunday service, you feel part of your own little community, especially if there are youth groups, Christmas/Easter activities, Saturday brunches, etc. When you drink your coffee that you bought at the church cafe while wearing the t-shirt you bought at the church store while you wait for the church rock band to go on, it's easy to feel like you have a second home. Perhaps that's the true secret of success of megachurches; tricking otherwise lonely people into feeling like they have a 10,000 person family. And of course, yes, there was REGULAR lessons from *poor people who never stopped giving to the church, and how their faith helped them escape poverty.*
It's no different than a group of Trekkies deciding to get together once a week to cosplay as Klingons and Ferengi. Some other Trekkies hear about it and get together themselves. One group is lead by a Piccard, one by a Kirk. It's the exact same thing...except Star Trek is more firmly rooted in historical realities. Did they have a group that practiced repairing the dilithium crystals?
I feel like a simple solution to the tax problem would be to tax churches that gross more than a million USD. This seems like a nice balance between protecting the small local churches while still curbing the excesses of the mega churches. Also remove tax exempt status on homes since there is really no reason for clergy residence to be tax exempt unless they literally live within the church itself (and even then it should be assessed on a case by case basis).
@@outmywritemind1739 Personally, I view local ones as community centers who more closely match the non-profit ideal the tax exempt status is set to protect. That said, there are small churches which take advantage of their members and need to be stopped, though I would argue that there are more direct ways than taxation to address them specifically. The problem with taxation though is where the line needs to be drawn to do the most good. Taxing smaller churches (who likely don't have the excess funds to budget for a new tax) would just result in them folding and pushing more people into the larger churches who can survive the new taxes, thus enriching some of the worst offenders outside of dangerous cults. Therefore, I chose a relatively high number in order to catch the mega churches without too much collateral, but I can certainly respect the arguments for why it should be lower as well. I just don't have the numbers or specific knowledge to give a better number than my gut instinct on this.
I can garentee you salvation if you all send me only 100 dollars! Furthermore, if you each send me a sacrificial squirrel, I'll deliver the writers from Simon's basement. Can I get an amen?!
I attended Willow Creek Community Church back in 1979, when I was just 18 and they were a small congregation of High school and Community college kids meeting in a rented movie theater. I was mostly there because I was talked into it by my best friend. The infamous Bill Hybals was there, and the French guy ( I can't remember his name). Anyhow, they did weird things from the beginning. We were given exactly 5 seconds to say hi to our neighbors, and then they started a high pressure sermon to try to scare us about disobeying God. No yelling or screaming, just manipulation. For example, during offerings, we were told "$20 may make a difference in where you spend eternity". Later they said that they had been to a healing service somewhere where people supposedly grew new arms and legs. Of course they didn't say where, and when they were swarmed afterwards by young people who believed them and had sick or injured family members they claimed that they were not allowed to reveal the secret location of the healing church or it would be overwhelmed. Right. I knew I was being lied to and left. Later, when I heard they had become a Megachurch and Bill Hybrls got caught in a sex scandal, I was not surprised.
Great video Simon. The Ernest Aingley church is like 10 minutes drive from me. I always saw that dude on TV growing up and thought what a sham that was. And that's coming from a person whose mom was a pastor at the time.
Didn't know megachurches were run by "Pastas". Lol. On a more serious note, as a Christian, these greedy "Pastors" are mostly condemned by the wider church community for the exact reasons pointed out in this video. All "megachurches" are not bad, however. There are very large churches with genuinely great staff, who have normal salaries, and provide lots of help to their community. It's just the bad apples that give them a bad reputation.
I am a Christian from birth. I love the way you summed it up in one sentence…. The way these mega churches operate, the line between faith and business is blurred.
A sermon I listened in on at a family friend’s request kind of told me all I need to know. Focusing on subservience, negativity and threat of punishment; deference to an upper power. All of which reads like an authoritarian playbook. By contrast, I believe that we, and we alone, have the power to make, with our own hands, our own heaven or hell. We don’t need an upper power to do so. We are that upper power.
For false messiahs and false prophets will appear, and will produce great signs and wonders in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Matthew 24:24
@@jacara1981 the church literally doesn’t even make enough money yearly to be taxed… you have to make at least $14000 to be taxed on income My point is that not all churches are evil not all churches are companies and not all churches are greedy ☦️
Trump wants to remove tax-free exemptions for a lot of things. Hopefully, somehow, they get thrown into the mix. I'm not keen on his idea of it, because his idea of ending tax-free exemptions hits things that should be, like legitimate charities, but if he does his broad reaching stuff because he lacks the brains, I'm fine with it. A future president will restore it for those that deserve it.
The biggest thing anyone needs to see in any church is their outreach and how effective that outreach is (by outreach, I am speaking about helping the poor, destitute, and those in bad situations). So, not every megachurch, not every Catholic Parish, but... No pastor or priest should be living in a palace or million dollar mansion and most of their personal income should be given back to the church for the purposes of establishing hospitals, safe houses, homeless shelters, and food drives.
The new testament does not teach tithing, but that it be as God had prospered you and according to what you have purposed in your heart - Not as the church has purposed for you.
Every church asks for a donation gotta pay bills, our Orthodox Church of 30 people in 600 square feet asks for a donation but it all goes back into the church or a bad luck fund for our members who fell on hard times and not into the clergy pockets all of our clergy have other jobs
Whats ironic in these megachurches is i think back to the story of jesus flipping the tables of the money handlers in anger and frustration of the faithful having lost their way. 2000 years later these megachurch pastors are no different from those seated at the money tables. Simply going off the book of Matthew and Jesus' actions in that event would suggest to me he would be horrified, ashamed and incensed by these people calling themselves "men/women of God".
It baffles me how people can be so blind and ..I'm sorry ..but just straight up stupid when it comes to being squeezed for every penny you have by some guy telling you the more you pay the closer you'll be to God. And I was raised as a Christian and believed in God growing up as well. This is one of the reasons I get so angry at Christians, because they buy into bs like this but then look at everyone else like they're fools. Smh
My brother cleaned pools in TN during college. He cleaned a pastor of a megachurch’s pool at his mansion. He was instructed to never speak to the pastor’s wife and said that the pastor never spoke to him. His people dealt with my brother. As a Christian, I’m disgusted by these people. I agree with the viewpoints in this video. Churches are having influence on politics but when do you plan to do a video about groups like BLM and their hoarding of money? It’s not just churches, it’s many of the left wing “religions” too.
If anything should be taxed it is religion. It's detrimental to progress of humankind. It hurts everything that needs to change in our society. If it was up to me all that preach religion would be outlaws.
It is worth remembering that there are always those willing to use the passionate beliefs of others for wealth and power. It is not just limited to churches. While it may be the megachurch pastor, it can be politicians or media personality who know which buttons to push for donations, clicks, or support. They may wave religion around, an LGBTQ flag, guns, Black Lives Matter signs, or some other issue. There are always those willing to publicly support a belief or ideal for personal gain. Always remember, it is not just a conservative issue.
Joel Osteen has individually blocked every person on an atheist Facebook page I am on. I actually felt special to see the "Joel Osteen has blocked you" message.
Olstein's Book, "Your Best Life Now", and the Prosperity Gospel Ministers ARE against what Jesus teaches...Christain's are tasked with Taking Up Our Crosses, following Christ, and forsaking all else..."One cannot have two masters (Christ Jesus vs Mammon/Money), for they will hate one and cling to the other"...
Yeah because the government would never use that money to do nefarious stuff….🙄 Mega churches are gross but the solution isn’t to take their money and give it to the butchers of Iraq, Afghanistan Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine etc…etc…etc…
You probably wouldn't even watch an episode like this if you are a member of these churches. I would pull the tax status of all churches, but hey, to these folks I'm a damn pagan.
I am an orthodox inquirer Our parish has usually 25 people but has had as many as 110 people and has had as little as 5 people all in a building the size of 600 square feet we also have a potluck at the end of liturgy ☦️
The band Look What I Did made a song about if Jesus came back and saw megachurches called Six Flags Over Jesus and that was my introduction to these lol
It's wild the 'insert here' to income ratio is still a thing and churches expect you 'tithe' 10% of your NET income to them still. The recommended 10% along with the 30% rent/mortgage 'rule' plus government taxes ranging from 0-60% (Depending on country, income, and enforcement. Even in the US, most dirt poor making 10k have to pay sales taxes around 5%.) with OECD average at 25%. That leaves the average person with 15%!!!!!! to spend on food, transportation, debt, and last and absolutely least personal gratification.
And won't it be shocking to no one if the rapture were to happen and the "pastor" of each of these mega flashy buildings isn't taken but their congregation is... won't that just be sweet juicy justice for the stain they bring to their faiths.
As a WELS Lutheran I am glad that we aren’t the only ones who see these heretical businesses. All these souls who think they know Jesus yet are even farther away it’s so sad. Jesus would NEVER condone these churches
To your point Simon, I think not only would Jesus be very disappointed in those mega churches, But so would another famous Simon: Peter! (and Paul for that matter)
Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse. St. Maximus the Confessor
Kenneth Copeland fascinates me. He radiates pure evil, and I'm not alone in feeling that. I try to imagine what his followers see in him, but I simply can't manage it.
I may not believe in a god, but when I see Copeland, I definitely believe in the devil.
look up "pastor kerney thomas"....
If the devil exists, he sits behind that man's eyes.
@@Thnooneman straight up you can’t trust those eyes, Bro’s got a little bit of demon in him. Those are eyes that make you feel uneasy.
He hates the people they hate.
I've always found megachurches to be questionable at best. When you commercialize religion it becomes meaningless, no sense of local, real community to rely on.
I agree, but must say the scary part is they work by fostering that very sense of community you mention. A sense that one is a part of the 'right' group. It's a false relationship, of course, built on manipulation and money going one way, but for those caught up, it might as well be a cult for the difficulty of detaching.
Only questionable??? 🤦
I agree. Truth is seldom popular. Mega churches are by definition, popular.
I'm honestly surprised that regular churches aren't speaking out against them, surely they can't ALL be OK with the practises of people like Copeland or Osteen?
Come in, wake up... the church has been a financial institution for literally as long as it has existed. This is nothing new. It's rotting, from the roots to its core, and needs to be dealt with as such
10M home... Private jets... All so humble. No idea how one falls for this.
Voices swell in song….
that's their trick, they prey on the desperate people, much like a cult.
If you can people believe immigrants are eating pets and covid was a Chinese disinformation campaign, then you can get people to believe anything.
Yes you do. You've met these people. They are about a third of humanity, maybe even half.
Sounds like MAGA fanatics to me.
Two cousins of mine where musicians for the PTL. Even when Jim and Tammy fell from grace, they refused to believe the accusations.
These megachurches are barely distinguishable from cults.
They follow most of the same playbook, so yeah, they're predatory and instill strict control over their tribe. I'm sure sexual abuse is quite common in these organizations, as this control over the individuals is of utmost importance to obtaining & wielding power.
Technically religion itself is by definition a cult
They ARE cults.
the most ironic thing about megapastors is that they look like what I Imagine the form that the devil takes if he tried to make himself look human
Great video! And as a former Catholic seminarian, I'd remind you that the Pope lives in a palace. And as a seminarian at Notre Dame (South Bend, IN), I saw how a vow of "poverty" meant little while living in what amounted to a country club.
I still believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Dont affiliate with the church where I live now. Do pray every day and night. maintain the Rosery. and pray forgiveness and gratitude every day. But am guarded on people in churches. Faith is simple, doctrine complicates the relationship between myself and God!
Yeah but the popes palace is owned by the church over all, not his personal residence. This pope has been incredibly frugal as well compared to the others.
@@gamerjaqi7873Does it really matter who owns it? The institution he represents provides him with that palace and all the amenities. He still gets to enjoy them. The pope might have been more frugal then the rest but that means nothing when we’re speaking of that kind of wealth.
@ believe what you like. There is a difference between this current pope and the Joel osteens of the world. He isn’t flaunting the wealth. He still lives as he did as much as possible. I respect that. He isn’t going after people’s money and promising them blessings in return.
It helps if you think of The Pope as at once the King of Vatican City, along with his many, many, many, titles like Bishop of Rome.
He's also a CEO if you consider the Holy See as a massive corporation.
He can always claim that he owns nothing, but then his office gives him all the stuff he wants.
Also, the current pope sure isn't as shockingly vile as many of his predecessors, but then again, one could remember that he could have hired a good PR agency.
Also, I studied in a Jesuit school and college so grew up in deep reverence for the church. I became an atheist over time.
I’m a Christian and I’ve always been suspicious of megachurches where the pastors live in multimillion dollar mansions and live luxury. If you use the old saying, “what would Jesus do” I think Jesus would want you to use that money from donations to help the less fortunate or help in the community. It’s really disgusting to use religion to make money.
Most Christians are scared and saddened by this sort of stuff.
However the bible does teach that pastors should be able to make a living, but the definition of ‘living’ is probably open to interpretation
Christ said to enter the kingdom of heaven you must give up your wealth and follow him he also said the poor woman who gave her last two cents have given more than any rich person before her because she gave all she had
Food is not evil, but gluttony is.
Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.
St. Maximus the Confessor
Mega churches are part of the reason for years that I didn't trust churches or clergy. Then I met some regular ordinary clergy at a coffee group in my local area, and they've managed to earn my respect tenfold.
All relgion is just man trying to apply meaning and control over forces they can't explain or can't face.
Kenneth Copeland is basically Darth Sidious in reality
How can SO many people be SO gullible??
Lead water, poor education and deep belief in nonsensical religion
Palpatine is more honest and has a much better personality.
@@TheItalianTrashPLUS, a way better accent!😂🎉
He even looks the part
Fun fact, John Oliver on the TV show “Last Week Tonight” started his own, legally recognized church called “ Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption”. He received thousands in tax free donations and mocked mega churches. It is hilarious and well worth a look into.
Wanda Jo Oliver is his “wife’s” name, right? She was so funny. What they did with that church was perfect!! Definitely worth a watch.
yep, he shuts it down when people keep sending "seeds" to him.
The only thing I can think about when I see Osteen is the fact that he refused to let people use his church to shelter them from a flood. Because, you know, that's what Jesus would have done, right?
He causes an instant visceral reaction every time I see him. The perfectly coifed hair and perfectly white teeth are absolutely off putting. And yeah, f that guy. Meanwhile Muslim congregations were opening their doors and feeding as many as they could during that time.
Maybe he was thinking of Noah? God obviously only wanted HIM to stay dry.
Can't have a bunch of dirty people messing up his "church". Dude is a real life demon
But they just had the carpets done! What of the carpets?!
@@rhyslogan6490 That might have been the 11th Commandment? "Thou shall not ruin my new carpet that I just had installed"
8:10 I’m an accountant in the US. I would like to clarify that they are in fact taxed on their sales. This is considered Unrelated Business Income and is taxed at 21% which is the same as our rate for corporations and most other not for profits are likewise subject to this tax.
But not on anything else right? And they're not audited like other charities.
only taxed on sales ....
Sure. Then they "donate" all proceeds to their own "charitable foundation", that's now written off as a donation which is no longer taxed. And the church keeps on banking.
@@senorslowbrz Unrelated business income applies to activities that 1. Are a trade or business broadly defined 2. Regularly carried on (usually met if once per month or more) 3. And not related in substance to the exempt function (in this case being a church). There are notable exceptions to this but UBI tax can apply to many more potential activities than sales.
@robsquared2 Thanks for your reply. Excuse my long response but I wanted to be thorough. See my reply to senorslowbrz below for the definition of UBI. The purpose of the UBI Tax is to prevent exempt organizations (like 501(C)(3)s) from having an unfair advantage over regular businesses by being able to run whatever business they want tax free so it can be pretty broad to protect private businesses. As far as whether they are audited, there are two kinds of audits that are relevant here: Financial Statement vs. Tax. What an audit is and its purpose are not well understood by the general public so I will provide a definition. You can think of accounting as "money tracking" and an audit as "checking money tracking". That's all it is. The purpose of a financial statement audit is to reasonably sure (high but not 100%) that their books aren't wrong in any way that matters due to fraud or errors. It's to help them with their accounting not to shake them down or treat them with suspicion. The purpose of a tax audit would be to check how you did your accounting and how you went about putting together your return(s) in order to ensure you paid the right amount of tax. As far as whether churches are audited, whether they get a FS audit is their own business and there are many reasons why they may or may not get an audit done. This is the same for private businesses which are not publicly traded (public companies must have FS audits done annually). Whether the IRS decides to audit a church is the IRS's business. People don't tend to want to be audited by the IRS. Personally, I would be concerned if a church the size of Joel Osteen's did not get a financial statement audit done on a regular basis because they have the resources to do so (audits can get expensive). As to whether churches are audited by the IRS, of course, they can be audited by the IRS just like any other organization. A special thing to note is that they are restricted, just like other 501(c)(3)s , when it comes to political activities and this is where they oftentimes have to be careful as they can get their exempt status revoked if they're not. Perhaps, this influences the behavior of some of the churches in the video. Though I'm inexperienced in the field, I'm halfway through my master's in accounting and would suspect that the IRS would try to focus its limited audit resources on those churches which are more bang for their buck. Sorry again for such a long response but I hope it was interesting.
Ex-Christian here. I’ll always be grateful I generally went to smaller churches because even though the faith doesn’t resonate with me anymore, it was also much more genuine because it was based on the attendance of local community and a staff who were similar to the rest of us in terms of income and assets. I don’t ever recall any of my church leaders being rich, which I think is infinitely valuable because money can corrupt.
You have nailed it, Simon. Though I am a man of faith, full disclosure, I am not a Christian. I have always had criticisms, but I attempt to respect the faith of any honest and honorable believer of their respective faith. As for these "megachurches" you have shown here: there is nothing honest or honorable about them in the least. This is an industry as you point out. What is more, there are a significant number of smaller churches working on the same model as these that are hoping to break out into the big time. It is disgraceful! Moreso as it seems many (most?) of them live very scandalous lives themselves. Though you did mention Jerry Falwell (a man who for a time was the public face of American morality), his son took over his church/university/media empire and resigned in disgrace once the three-ways between himself, wife, and a Miami pool-boy became known. They are all compromised.
That said, a humble pastor of a church (even if a "reasonably" financially successful one) who holds himself to the highest moral standard, who asks for money to improve the church or expand their school rather than enrich themselves... I can respect that sort, and I have known such as that. But evangelical Americans tend to have a short memory and are too easily led around by the hog-ring of cultish church environment. I know of a church that required your annual tax statement to join and sent a monthly bill for "their" ten percent... gross, not net. Yet it was tolerated for many years; and perhaps still. It is disgraceful that a conservatively independent populace as churchgoers are, sacrifice their self-determination and freedom of thought for someone who claims you basically have to pay for salvation. The Roman Catholic church once did that, selling indulgences. It raised the ire of a certain German priest and led to the Thirty Years' War.
In my opinion it is nigh impossible to separate the religious from the political. Your moral values inform your political values and how you vote. But when a candidate of either party speaks at a church to drum up votes, that line between faith and politics is entirely erased. I do advocate for a more honorable, ethical and (dare I say) more moral society. But once you openly declare your political position from the pulpit then you introduce dogma to the political process. This is a slippery slope as different Christian denominations are just as ready to condemn one-another to damnation as they are the followers of any other faith. In short... it has become a ridiculous but dangerous mess.
My husband and I attended a church that had a membership of 1500. I was told by one of the pastors that since I was a woman I was supposed to do as he said without question. I told him, "Not happening," and we were out the door so fast our sneakers were smoking. We still love Jesus, but we're leery of most of His people.
you saw the red flag and got outta there. Good on you.
Even Jesus didn't like some of the people who use His name. "Depart from me, you vipers! I never knew you!"
I never understood how people are fully behind these mega pastors. I heard of a pastor in Louisiana who asked his followers to buy him a luxurious watch and called broke those who didn’t donate to him
Never underestimate the power of fear and tradition combined.
In Houston, we joke that Joel Osteen read the story of Noah and concluded that he needed a yacht.
You're confusing your mega rich pastors- the one you are referring to was from Kansas City. The Louisiana luxury watch pastor story involved Jesse Duplantis. His church is in Destrehan, Louisiana, outside New Orleans. He bragged about his watch costing more than his second house during a service. If you'd like to see his current home, it's at the corner of Ormond Blvd and River Rd in Destrehan, LA. Except that if you street view it, he has had the entire structure blurred out on street view. It's a massive, white two story plantation style mansion with full wrap around porches and huge columns all the way around.
Holy Jesus!!! 😅
All these churches should be taxed. I don’t see many of them doing outreach for the community.
That sets a bad precedent that the state will attack churches in the future for anything
Taxation is theft
tax them!
Sixty percent.
Or treat them as non-profits. That means they have to use the money for charity or go to jail.
Wasn't the NFL a non profit for years?@@badluck5647
No also end income tax
@@TexasNationalist1836🎯
I grew up in a "smaller" megachurch which was built to seat around 3500 people, though they only averaged around 2k attendees per weekend over 3-4 services 15-20 years ago when I was a kid. But now they're up to about 4-5k attendees per weekend at their main building and have expanded out to several other locations in the area within a 30 mile radius. My grandparents were actually founding members in the 80s and my grandpa was the one who convinced a pastor friend of his to be the first lead pastor.
I went through some personal changes between high school and college where I stopped really believing in the religion but having connections at the church I worked there as a custodian for a few years through college and that's when I got to see more of the behind the scenes stuff that really turned me off. Mostly having to do with spending. That's when I saw the super nice cars the pastors would drive. The new lead pastor who started his tenure off by spending a lot of money on remodeling his office which was basically like a studio apartment with couches, a large 65" flat screen TV, which that alone would've probably been in the $4k-$7k price range at that time 13 years ago, and got an Xbox One for his sons to play in his office on the TV. He had a fridge, sink, and microwave in his office so he wouldn't have to go into the main office to use the stuff in there. And also had his own private bathroom while 30+ other office employees had to all share one or use one of the public restrooms if someone was in there. And his kids were some of the most unpleasant people, always having an attitude and looking down on others with a "do you know who I am/my dad is?" mindset. One of those kids is now the lead pastor at one of the new church locations they opened up.
And it was just a terrible place full of gossip meant to shame people for slipping in their religious beliefs. I remember one office worker had apparently had an affair and when the leaders at the church found out they had a meeting of everyone who worked at the church, including us custodians, where they publicly condemned the guy and made him give an apology speech and then fired him. And it just felt so gross to be a witness to it, like yeah, cheating is gross/wrong but it had nothing to do with me. I didn't need to be there to be part of his humiliation. I was just there to clean the shit off the walls. But it was a mandatory meeting so I had to go in on one of my days off to attend.
My parents still attend, but what I saw really grossed me out. I can't imagine what goes on behind the scenes at the bigger ones where they have more money to corrupt. My grandparents would be rolling in their graves if they could see what was going on there, now.
Incredible. Thanks for sharing.
I would really hope you would give church and Christianity a second try. What the mega church teaches is far from the true gospel. I recommend Lutheranism. We aren’t uber liberal (except for the Evengelical Lutheran Church of America) like Methodists. And aren’t political like baptists. We preach Faith alone through Scripture alone, only through the Grace alone, of Christ alone.
Not read your story just the 1st line. You went to a smaller megachurch would that be a church? 😀
@whoarewe7515 In this video he said that a megachurch is one with an attendance over 2k. He didn't specify if that was in one sermon or total per week. The top 50 largest megachurches on wikipedia have the smallest number of attendees at 10k. So I said what I said because it qualified based on Simon's words but there are definitely plenty that are bigger.
@@ssloestj.4008 I've looked at religion as an adult and I just don't buy it. Thousands of religions in the world and all of their believers believe theirs is the right one and they can't all be correct.
Add in that however many 1000s of years ago humans were less knowledgeable and just trying to make sense of how the world worked while also trying to maintain a civilization and you end up mixing deities, origin stories, and rules of society together into a religion that snowballs out of control with multiple branches based on the same religion because not even everyone in a religion can read their scriptures without different interpretations in a modern world.
It's all just a way of trying to cope with the world while being amenable to the ways it controls how you can live your life.
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." I always read that to mean that Jesus believed in a separation of church and state too.
Where did Christ say that I want to see it
The problem being what people believe belongs to God. If they preach the prosperity gospel and believe that all of your wealth is a blessing from God, than what do they owe to Caesar?
@@Fredbats politicians and world leaders are worthless the only leaders I have listen to is our lord and savior first and then people important to me who worship Christ
@@TexasNationalist1836 Mathew 22:21
@TexasNationalist1836 Mark 12:17
Just a fun reminder that you can report churches to the IRS and have their tax exempt status revoked if they break the requirements of that exemption. I.e being overtly political
Yea riiiight. 😂😂😂
The IRS will do absolutely nothing about it. They are too scared of the political fallout. Once again, religion gets a pass because the faithful are dangerous.
Just remember that your minister may put his/her interest above yours. Most if not all preachers want obedient and pliant flocks, and certainly not independent thinkers.
Creflo Dollar has to be my favorite megachurch leader name.
😂
Crazy thing is that's his real given name. He was born with the last name "Dollar"...
I attended Lakewood, in Houston, when I was a teenager. This was BEFORE Joel Osteen took over.
His dad, John Osteen, was a real human's human. He never tried to take everyone's money just to take it. He gave money to local public schools to buy textbooks. John accepted donations every year to build present and food boxes for at risk families every Christmas. He even used church donations to buy school supplies for underprivileged kids. I miss him.
I attend a “megachurch” also… and the pastor is very real and down to earth… the money that’s donated to the church ALWAYS go towards those who TRULY need it… the unemployed, underemployed, schools in underserved areas, over seas to countries underdeveloped… a lot of charity causes all around… so the church DOES live up to their mission… I’m not sure how the others are run, but the one I attend is the TRUTH…
@@lolliannbruce7783 there's always going to be some good ones or good to start off, there's always going to be bad ones, and there's always going to be scammers from the start. One simple way to tell is looking at how the leaders live. Do they live in million dollar mansions, drive luxury cars, private jet or yachts, live the good lives? If they are then chances are the money collected is going to them.
I'd say the lines between faith and business aren't even blurred. They're erased completely.
These things are IMO not churches by any reasonable definition of the word. Their "services" are nothing that would have been recognized in previous centuries as anything remotely resembling worship. And here's the thing: These churches are so pervasive in the US that they have essentially become the face of Christianity to non-Christians. When you hear someone calling for churches to be taxed, these are the churches they're thinking of. Their very existence harms Christianity's reputation even more than the religion itself would otherwise merit.
“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” but those who preach in His name lay their heads in $10M mansions.
A prison sentence reduced from 45 years to 8… the US justice system is such a joke.
Fittingly, P Diddy has a song where he sings “all about the benjamins “
Mega churches, for people who don’t care about spiritual growth but love a good show.
The worst thing about MegaChurches is that these days most regular churches strive to become Mega.
Like the Mormon church?
@SamIAm10262 no the Mormons have been doing literally their own thing since the 1800s. They are a completely different thing.
Despite your efforts to expose them, the scriptures have been calling them out for 2000 years
Amen
Meanwhile, in the Orthodox Church, a lot of our priests have to work secular jobs in order to make ends meet. Our bishops may also wear fancy vestments but they are also hardly living in luxury.
слава отцу и сыну и святому духу Господи помилуй тебя I am in my inquiry period at my local Orthodox Church ☦️
Seriously, how do they get away with claiming to be 'non-profit' when many of these religious leaders literally claim to be 'prophets?'
I think everyone attending these Megachurches forgot the part in the Bible where Jesus went into the Temple and started flipping tables, wh!pping people and yelling at them for using the church for monetary gain. 😅
Trump was there selling his bible.
I've been a former member of and attended several churches ranging from one large enough they had to hold 3 separate services in order to accommodate the number of members to one where there is maybe 60 or so members plus staff. While I have always loved Hillsong's music I could never be comfortable attending a mega church. It always seems less a Sunday service and more a concert or performance. I prefer churches where everyone actually knows everyone, and the pastor knows you by name. That to me is more in line to sense of community a church is supposed to provide in conjunction to religious understanding.
Those big, fancy churches tell me immediately that the leader is much more concerned about his/her earthly pleasures than storing up any treasure (so to speak) in Heaven. Sure, a clean, safe, consistent building in which to meet is highly useful and I have no beef with that. But when it's flashy? Shouldn't that money be used to take care of those who are less fortunate? I'm pretty sure I read that Christ said several versions of that. I don't recall him saying to establish massive, elaborately garnished palaces and let people starve. And I don't understand how so many people fall for it.
I used to volunteer at an old people's home. The only channels accessible on their TVs were Christian channels/megachurches.
The people staying there were brainwashed. One of the old folks I used to tell me we need to donate everything we have to these churches as the devil is trying to destroy them.
"Wealth is a sign of god's blessing" -- dang, the big guy must be seriously ticked off at me! As the Kurgan once said, "Nuns, no sense of humor!" 😅
So we don't really need to worry about all those pesky poor people.
Salvation is literally supposed to be free, that’s kinda the point. I’m eternally grateful that God reached me outside of any church. If I hadn’t experienced that personal connection I might have confused my relationship with God with an institution. Too many of those institutions are an abomination.
Salvation isn’t free, like everything else in this world, it’s both conditional and natural. For example to have a house, you need space, materials, and labor. If you were to take away just one component, the house would not “exist”therefore it is conditional. But abodes are a consequential as a result of living organisms manipulating their environment to facilitate their survival. Almost every being that “can” almost always “will” because it’s just that much more efficient and beneficial to have a house or home than not. Like this it is natural.
Genuine question from an atheist who finds religion interesting: what is your take on why God would reach people through these predatory megachurches?
@ none of what you said made any sense in the context of salvation of the soul, which is the free gift from God to humanity.
@stellamcqueen4809
I guess it depends on whether those environments are genuinely reaching people rather than leading them astray, but supposing that some people are genuinely reached, it’s not to the credit of the minister.
The apostles had the same conundrum in the first century and their response was: as long as Jesus is being preached, it doesn’t matter what the motivations of the preacher are, God is still able to reach people through that unwitting scumbag. They preach to line their own pockets, God highjacks their scam to create meaningful and lasting connections.
The real question is, what ends up happening to the unscrupulous ministers? Jesus said in Matthew 7 that the day will come when those guys will try to ingratiate themselves with the Lord to weasel their way into paradise, making all sorts of claims about how they cast out demons and prophesied on his behalf. Jesus says; “I never knew you. Depart from me.”
@@stellamcqueen4809 I see the idea of God as kind of like a game master to humans or something like GTA game. There are cheat codes in GTA or you can play the game without killing civilians etc BUT it is all still within the parameters of the Game Master. Therefore, I think morality only applies to God's creatures since you can't really call someone "evil" if you live within him(I see GOD as the observable and the not observable universe as a whole being). It's like the billions and trillions of bacteria, viruses and germs inside our bodies vieing for supremacy. Am I suppose to say their "evil" when they are fighting 24/7 too? I'd call God evil IF there are other game masters that wanted all living creatures to be at peace with each other and GOD DOES NOT but then again God wouldn't be called "God" if there are other game masters now would it? I see "GOD" as a child that designs different sets of legos and that we are just a small part of it like earth and the living things within it. Kind of like those aliens in the last scene of Men In Black. That's how I see God.
Megachurches have always sounded like cults to me.
Technically by definition religion itself is a cult
I went to a megachurch as a kid (Compassion Christian, in Georgia), and I have to say, I understand why people like them. You really feel like it's more than just a Sunday service, you feel part of your own little community, especially if there are youth groups, Christmas/Easter activities, Saturday brunches, etc. When you drink your coffee that you bought at the church cafe while wearing the t-shirt you bought at the church store while you wait for the church rock band to go on, it's easy to feel like you have a second home. Perhaps that's the true secret of success of megachurches; tricking otherwise lonely people into feeling like they have a 10,000 person family.
And of course, yes, there was REGULAR lessons from *poor people who never stopped giving to the church, and how their faith helped them escape poverty.*
I remember when compassion was just Savannah Christian
Thats definitely the trick
in a way, the corporate christianity thing is more about communion than the old boys in rome are.
Treat your pastor like Taylor Swift and everything is fine. Treat Taylor Swift, like Taylor Swift and it’s a sin.
It's no different than a group of Trekkies deciding to get together once a week to cosplay as Klingons and Ferengi. Some other Trekkies hear about it and get together themselves. One group is lead by a Piccard, one by a Kirk. It's the exact same thing...except Star Trek is more firmly rooted in historical realities. Did they have a group that practiced repairing the dilithium crystals?
I feel like a simple solution to the tax problem would be to tax churches that gross more than a million USD. This seems like a nice balance between protecting the small local churches while still curbing the excesses of the mega churches. Also remove tax exempt status on homes since there is really no reason for clergy residence to be tax exempt unless they literally live within the church itself (and even then it should be assessed on a case by case basis).
Why not just tax all churches? That seems like a much simpler solution. Why should we as a society be attempting to protect small local churches?
@@outmywritemind1739 Personally, I view local ones as community centers who more closely match the non-profit ideal the tax exempt status is set to protect. That said, there are small churches which take advantage of their members and need to be stopped, though I would argue that there are more direct ways than taxation to address them specifically. The problem with taxation though is where the line needs to be drawn to do the most good. Taxing smaller churches (who likely don't have the excess funds to budget for a new tax) would just result in them folding and pushing more people into the larger churches who can survive the new taxes, thus enriching some of the worst offenders outside of dangerous cults. Therefore, I chose a relatively high number in order to catch the mega churches without too much collateral, but I can certainly respect the arguments for why it should be lower as well. I just don't have the numbers or specific knowledge to give a better number than my gut instinct on this.
As much as I detest Osteen- hearing Simon’s accent refer to him as “pasta” is everything I needed
😂
I can garentee you salvation if you all send me only 100 dollars! Furthermore, if you each send me a sacrificial squirrel, I'll deliver the writers from Simon's basement. Can I get an amen?!
You forgot TD Jake's being part of the P Diddy parties.😮
... and apparently the word 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary!
The human condition is so weird. Who would fall for these cons?
The same people who fell for Donald Trumps con.
The same people who voted for Joe Biden gullible people
As a houston local, most people here can't stand Joel olsteen. He had to be publicly guilt shamed to open the church to flood victims
"Give a man power, and he´ll show you, who he is"
- somebody
Weird? That's an odd way of saying despicable manipulation of the less educated and fanatical. But alright.
Merry Christmas to you and yours. 🎄🎁🎄🎁🎄 May all of your wishes come true. I hope you have the Happiest of New Years! 🎉🎊🎉🎊🎉
Jesus wouldn't approve.
Given what He did when one of the churches turned into a market? Ain't that the truth.
And that is the best line to tell someone who is trap in those schemes.
This.
Love the scenes of Uncle Baby Billy from "The Righteous Gemstones".
I attended Willow Creek Community Church back in 1979, when I was just 18 and they were a small congregation of High school and Community college kids meeting in a rented movie theater. I was mostly there because I was talked into it by my best friend. The infamous Bill Hybals was there, and the French guy ( I can't remember his name). Anyhow, they did weird things from the beginning. We were given exactly 5 seconds to say hi to our neighbors, and then they started a high pressure sermon to try to scare us about disobeying God. No yelling or screaming, just manipulation. For example, during offerings, we were told "$20 may make a difference in where you spend eternity". Later they said that they had been to a healing service somewhere where people supposedly grew new arms and legs. Of course they didn't say where, and when they were swarmed afterwards by young people who believed them and had sick or injured family members they claimed that they were not allowed to reveal the secret location of the healing church or it would be overwhelmed. Right. I knew I was being lied to and left. Later, when I heard they had become a Megachurch and Bill Hybrls got caught in a sex scandal, I was not surprised.
Great video Simon. The Ernest Aingley church is like 10 minutes drive from me. I always saw that dude on TV growing up and thought what a sham that was. And that's coming from a person whose mom was a pastor at the time.
Didn't know megachurches were run by "Pastas". Lol.
On a more serious note, as a Christian, these greedy "Pastors" are mostly condemned by the wider church community for the exact reasons pointed out in this video. All "megachurches" are not bad, however. There are very large churches with genuinely great staff, who have normal salaries, and provide lots of help to their community. It's just the bad apples that give them a bad reputation.
Prosperity Gospel- Jesus loves me this I know, for my bank balance tells me so.
As Otto the bus driver once said, "this whole thing wreaks of the wacky tobacky, I'm outta here😂".
Keneth Copeland always scare me
If there's any proof that demons posses people, he's it.
Creflo "One More Private Jet" Dollar. 💲
I am a Christian from birth. I love the way you summed it up in one sentence…. The way these mega churches operate, the line between faith and business is blurred.
A sermon I listened in on at a family friend’s request kind of told me all I need to know. Focusing on subservience, negativity and threat of punishment; deference to an upper power. All of which reads like an authoritarian playbook.
By contrast, I believe that we, and we alone, have the power to make, with our own hands, our own heaven or hell. We don’t need an upper power to do so. We are that upper power.
I will pray for you ☦️☦️☦️ слава отцу и сыну и святому духу Господи помилуй тебя
For false messiahs and false prophets will appear, and will produce great signs and wonders in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Matthew 24:24
ALL Churches should be taxed at the same rate as companies.
Taxation is theft
No you are nuts my parish literally has 30 people in a 600 square foot building and we actually worship our lord and savior Christ ☦️☦️
@TexasNationalist1836 nothing you said refuted what I said
@@jacara1981 the church literally doesn’t even make enough money yearly to be taxed… you have to make at least $14000 to be taxed on income
My point is that not all churches are evil not all churches are companies and not all churches are greedy ☦️
If they qualify as a mega church, they should no longer be tax exempt.
Trump wants to remove tax-free exemptions for a lot of things. Hopefully, somehow, they get thrown into the mix. I'm not keen on his idea of it, because his idea of ending tax-free exemptions hits things that should be, like legitimate charities, but if he does his broad reaching stuff because he lacks the brains, I'm fine with it. A future president will restore it for those that deserve it.
Its always funny to me, when they claim, with a straight face, that they absolutely *need* multiple private jets, in order to "save" more people 😅
The biggest thing anyone needs to see in any church is their outreach and how effective that outreach is (by outreach, I am speaking about helping the poor, destitute, and those in bad situations). So, not every megachurch, not every Catholic Parish, but...
No pastor or priest should be living in a palace or million dollar mansion and most of their personal income should be given back to the church for the purposes of establishing hospitals, safe houses, homeless shelters, and food drives.
How did we go from John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, living on a diet of locust and wild honey to these charlatans.
a church that ask for tithe is a no go
I don't know if that is true. All churches offer everything for free and all churches have to pay the bills.
@@jimland7176i earn low wage,not my bills
@@jimland7176Not my bills
The new testament does not teach tithing, but that it be as God had prospered you and according to what you have purposed in your heart - Not as the church has purposed for you.
Every church asks for a donation gotta pay bills, our Orthodox Church of 30 people in 600 square feet asks for a donation but it all goes back into the church or a bad luck fund for our members who fell on hard times and not into the clergy pockets all of our clergy have other jobs
When a church effectively asks "Can your financial institution find its way into my wallet?"... Run, just run. And report them to the IRS.
Jim Jones said “if you wanna get rich, start a church” and after hearing this I’m not shocked.
In Siskiyou County, just north of Redding we are fighting them from buying up property here.
Whats ironic in these megachurches is i think back to the story of jesus flipping the tables of the money handlers in anger and frustration of the faithful having lost their way.
2000 years later these megachurch pastors are no different from those seated at the money tables. Simply going off the book of Matthew and Jesus' actions in that event would suggest to me he would be horrified, ashamed and incensed by these people calling themselves "men/women of God".
It baffles me how people can be so blind and ..I'm sorry ..but just straight up stupid when it comes to being squeezed for every penny you have by some guy telling you the more you pay the closer you'll be to God. And I was raised as a Christian and believed in God growing up as well. This is one of the reasons I get so angry at Christians, because they buy into bs like this but then look at everyone else like they're fools. Smh
My brother cleaned pools in TN during college. He cleaned a pastor of a megachurch’s pool at his mansion. He was instructed to never speak to the pastor’s wife and said that the pastor never spoke to him. His people dealt with my brother. As a Christian, I’m disgusted by these people.
I agree with the viewpoints in this video. Churches are having influence on politics but when do you plan to do a video about groups like BLM and their hoarding of money? It’s not just churches, it’s many of the left wing “religions” too.
If anything should be taxed it is religion. It's detrimental to progress of humankind. It hurts everything that needs to change in our society. If it was up to me all that preach religion would be outlaws.
Kenneth Copeland has never had plastic surgery. He just looks like that.
It is worth remembering that there are always those willing to use the passionate beliefs of others for wealth and power. It is not just limited to churches. While it may be the megachurch pastor, it can be politicians or media personality who know which buttons to push for donations, clicks, or support. They may wave religion around, an LGBTQ flag, guns, Black Lives Matter signs, or some other issue. There are always those willing to publicly support a belief or ideal for personal gain. Always remember, it is not just a conservative issue.
“Men of the cloth shouldn’t live like Barons”
- Samuel Beechworth
Mega Church, mega bucks. They are in it for the money, it's that simple.
Joel Osteen has individually blocked every person on an atheist Facebook page I am on. I actually felt special to see the "Joel Osteen has blocked you" message.
Thank you for your in depth look at churches 😊🇿🇦
Atlas shrugged
But Jesus wept
Olstein's Book, "Your Best Life Now", and the Prosperity Gospel Ministers ARE against what Jesus teaches...Christain's are tasked with Taking Up Our Crosses, following Christ, and forsaking all else..."One cannot have two masters (Christ Jesus vs Mammon/Money), for they will hate one and cling to the other"...
As a Christian myself... megachurches are the absolute worst.
Disgusting. Just disgusting. Tax them! Tax them!
Yeah because the government would never use that money to do nefarious stuff….🙄
Mega churches are gross but the solution isn’t to take their money and give it to the butchers of Iraq, Afghanistan Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine etc…etc…etc…
If I was religious I’d imagine I’d call this blasphemy.
That's exactly what it is - blasphemy in the extreme.
If you were religious you'd be handing Kenneth Copeland 20 dollars lmao
"Pastas"
Merry Christmas Guys
Cults.
You probably wouldn't even watch an episode like this if you are a member of these churches. I would pull the tax status of all churches, but hey, to these folks I'm a damn pagan.
I am an orthodox inquirer Our parish has usually 25 people but has had as many as 110 people and has had as little as 5 people all in a building the size of 600 square feet we also have a potluck at the end of liturgy ☦️
It's very interesting that a lot of videos this channel have been following very closely to another channel after they put theirs out.
The band Look What I Did made a song about if Jesus came back and saw megachurches called Six Flags Over Jesus and that was my introduction to these lol
It's wild the 'insert here' to income ratio is still a thing and churches expect you 'tithe' 10% of your NET income to them still.
The recommended 10% along with the 30% rent/mortgage 'rule' plus government taxes ranging from 0-60% (Depending on country, income, and enforcement. Even in the US, most dirt poor making 10k have to pay sales taxes around 5%.) with OECD average at 25%. That leaves the average person with 15%!!!!!! to spend on food, transportation, debt, and last and absolutely least personal gratification.
If my kids ask to buy some, I’m gonna tell them we’ve got hope at the house.
And won't it be shocking to no one if the rapture were to happen and the "pastor" of each of these mega flashy buildings isn't taken but their congregation is... won't that just be sweet juicy justice for the stain they bring to their faiths.
As a WELS Lutheran I am glad that we aren’t the only ones who see these heretical businesses. All these souls who think they know Jesus yet are even farther away it’s so sad. Jesus would NEVER condone these churches
Brian didn't 'allegedly' cover for his dad. He did cover for his dad.
Poor people. I can only imagine the despair that lures people into those churches and compels them to make such a deal with the devil.
To your point Simon, I think not only would Jesus be very disappointed in those mega churches, But so would another famous Simon: Peter! (and Paul for that matter)
Food is not evil, but gluttony is.
Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.
St. Maximus the Confessor