According to history... the basis of your reference was certainly found to be the first "shakedown artists".....and sometimes with deadly force.
Even so, I have a hard time accusing anyone dedicated to the ministry without having hard facts first. Some here are judging only by personal feelings, differing religious beliefs and misguided conjecture/hearsay.
Many evangelicals make a tremendous amount of money selling tapes, books and doing lectures... besides getting their alloted salary from the church. If they've invested well.....it grows. They do have more opportunity than the average pastor because appearing on television exposes them to a much greater audience.
Wait......I feel like I'm defending why it's better to have freedom of religion and the right to own one's personal property/prosperity in the U.S. ....as opposed to a gov't controlled entity/church which demands resources by force and puts a cap on the amount of income a pastor receices.... if "they" feel it's excessive. Silly me. :)
How dare you....
Can’t argue with anything you said. Any church, or organization of any kind for that matter, is prone to corruption. The targeted churches may or may not be doing anything illegal or even unethical.
I’m not a big fan or TV ministries generally, but I do think that the “mega” label is misleading. These churches by membership are miniscule compared to the mainline denominations. And that, IMO, is exactly why they are targeted. “We’re going after the ‘mega’churches!” Oooh, scary, megachurch. But the reality is that they are easy targets because of their relative small size. Go after a larger denomination and suddenly you have voters and politicians who are members of these denominations to contend with. So the so-called “megas” are easy targets. The supermegas will be next.