Like I have stated before; Damned are only those that disagree or are not part of the TBN crowd. It matters not if one violates God's laws. It matters not if one commits crimes so long as one is part of the particular group.
I knew that this has nothing to do with religion nor God but is a sect that worships only Mammon!
Here enjoy:
List of Christian evangelists involved in scandals
Aimee Semple McPherson, 1920s40s
Main article:
Aimee Semple McPherson
One of the most famous evangelist scandals involved Canadian-born Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s, who allegedly faked her own death. She later claimed that she had been kidnapped, but a grand jury adjourned with no indictment, saying it had not enough evidence to proceed.
Roberta Semple Salter, her daughter from her first marriage, became estranged from Semple McPherson and successfully sued her mother's attorney for slander during the 1930s. As a result of this she was cut out of her mother's will. Aimee Semple McPherson died in 1944 from an accidental overdose of
barbiturates.
Lonnie Frisbee, 1970s1980s
Main article:
Lonnie Frisbee
Lonnie Frisbee was an American closeted gay Pentecostal evangelist and self-described "seeing prophet" in the late 1960s and 1970s who despite his "hippie" appearance had notable success as a minister and evangelist. Frisbee was a key figure in the
Jesus Movement and was involved in the rise of two worldwide denominations (
Calvary Chapel and the
Vineyard Movement). Both churches later disowned him because of his active homosexuality, removing him first from leadership positions, then ultimately firing him. He died of
AIDS-related complications in 1993.
Marjoe Gortner, early 1970s
Main article:
Marjoe Gortner
Gortner rose to fame in the late 1940s as a child preacher, but he had simply been trained to do this by his parents and he had no personal faith. He was able to perform "miracles" and received large amounts of money in donations. After suffering a crisis of conscience, he invited a film crew to accompany him on a final preaching tour. The resulting film,
Marjoe, mixes footage of revival meetings with Gortner's explanations of how evangelists manipulate their audiences. It won the
1972 Academy Award for
Best Documentary Feature, but was not shown widely in the
Southern United States due to fears that it would cause outrage in the
Bible Belt.
[1]
Billy James Hargis, early 1970s
Main article:
Billy James Hargis
Hargis was a prolific author and radio evangelist. Hargis formed
American Christian College in 1971 to teach fundamentalist Christian principles. However, a
sex scandal erupted at the College, involving claims that Hargis had sex with male and female students. Hargis was forced out of American Christian College's presidency as a result. Further scandals erupted when members of Hargis' youth choir, the "All American Kids", accused Hargis of sexual misconduct as well. The college eventually closed down in the mid-1970s. Hargis denied the allegations publicly.
Jim & Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, 1986 and 1991
Main articles:
Jimmy Swaggart and
Jim Bakker
In 1986, evangelist Jimmy Swaggart began on-screen attacks against fellow televangelists Marvin Gorman and Jim Bakker. He uncovered Gorman's affair with a member of Gorman's congregation, and also helped expose Bakker's infidelity (which was arranged by a colleague while on an out-of-state trip).
[2] These exposures received widespread media coverage. Gorman retaliated in kind by hiring a private investigator to uncover Swaggart's own adulterous indiscretions with a prostitute.
[3] Swaggart was subsequently forced to step down from his pulpit for a year and made a tearful televised apology in February 1988 to his congregation, saying "I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgiveness."
[4][5]
Swaggart was caught again by California police three years later in 1991 with another prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, who was riding with him in his car when he was stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road. When asked why she was with Swaggart, she replied, "He asked me for sex. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute."
[6]
Peter Popoff, 1987
Main article:
Peter Popoff
A self-proclaimed prophet and faith healer in the 1980s, Popoff's ministry went bankrupt in 1987 after magician and skeptic
James Randi and
Steve Shaw debunked his methods by showing that instead of receiving information about audience members from
supernatural sources, he received it through an in-ear receiver.
[7]
Morris Cerullo, 1990s
Main article:
Morris Cerullo
A number of incidents involving California-based televangelist
Morris Cerullo caused outrage in the
United Kingdom during the 1990s. Cerullo's claims of faith healing were the focus of particular concern. At a London crusade in 1992, he pronounced a child
cancer sufferer to be healed, yet the girl died two months later. Multiple complaints were upheld against
satellite television channels transmitting Cerullo's claims of faith-healing, and a panel of doctors concluded that Cerullo's claims of miraculous healing powers could not be substantiated. Cerullo also produced fund-raising material which was condemned as unethical by a number of religious leaders, as it implied that giving money to his organisation would result in family members becoming Christians.
[8]
Mike Warnke, 1991
Main article:
Mike Warnke
Warnke was a popular Christian evangelist and comedian during the 1970s and 1980s. He claimed in his autobiography,
The Satan Seller (1973), that he had once been deeply involved in a Satanic cult and was a Satanic priest before converting to Christianity. In 1991,
Cornerstone magazine launched an investigation into Warnke's life and testimony. It investigated Warnke's life, from interviews with over one hundred personal friends and acquaintances, to his ministry's tax receipts. Its investigation turned up damaging evidence of fraud and deceit. The investigation also revealed the unflattering circumstances surrounding Warnke's multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces. Most critically, however, the investigation showed how Warnke could not possibly have done the many things he claimed to have done throughout his nine-month tenure as a Satanist, much less become a drug-addicted dealer or become a Satanic high priest.
Robert Tilton, 1991
Main article:
Robert Tilton
Tilton is an American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his paid television program
Success-N-Life. At its peak, it aired in all 235 American TV markets. In 1991,
Diane Sawyer and
ABC News conducted an investigation of Tilton. The investigation, broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on November 21, 1991, found that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer requests without reading them, keeping only the money or valuables sent to them by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated $80 million
USD a year. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure that the phone operators were off the line in seven minutes. Tilton sued ABC for libel in 1992, but the case was dismissed in 1993, and Tilton's show was off the air by October 30, 1993.