"I'm sure this has been asked several times, but who is this guy?? I'm a Christian and I've never heard of the him. Seems to be getting a whole lot of national coverage when its basically an internal church issue. "
You may not have heard of him, but he's been a pretty prominent character in the evangelical movement. He was he head of the NAE, a group with lots of members, including most of the envangelicals you have heard of.
As for his church...it was his. It's a huge edifice, built with the money of his congregation, which numbers about 11,000. They were duped by this creep.
He's yet another in a long line of religious hucksters, pretending to lead people to Jesus, while pocketing their money and doing as they please.
It's easy. You just have to have a good speaking voice, be good-looking, and know enough about the Bible to preach. Add some good musicians and a lot of Hollywood-style production values and pretty soon you have a mega church.
Of course, there's a lot of collection plate passing, fund drives of all sorts, and general grifting to do, but con men are good at that. This one built a pretty good little con game, but he made a mistake. He thought he could get away with getting sex from some gay prostitute and taking drugs.
Pride. It's a terrible thing, and this guy was full of it.
As for it affecting anyone's vote...well that's just silly. There are sure a lot of people who were members of his congregation, though, who have to be asking themselves how they could have been so deceived.
An old story. Rent "Elmer Gantry" from NetFlix. It's a perfect explanation of how this happens.
From the lowliest surf to the grandest kings, we are human and will sin. Anyone grounded in faith understands. It's only the godless liberals who don't understand and who see some advantage here.
A 11,000 church doesn't seem personal to me. How many of the congregants could he have known? Not to mention, how many associate pastors could he have employed and how many congregants could they have known? These churches remind me of clubs, where families go for supper and socializing. How faith-centered could it possibily be?
I remember reading about a mega church (I forget the pastor's name) and how it got started.
The "pastor" and his group went door-to-door asking people what they DIDN'T like about church. One of the things mentioned was too much attention given to Christ. The pastor then, when starting the church, wouldn't allow having a cross inside the sanctuary... he said it might be "off-putting".
Gee, if you don't have a church that mentions Christ, could it really be a CHRISTIAN church?
"He took me behind the altar and rammed the fear of God into me."