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When Christian radio is used for fraud

This is absolutely nothing new and is truly a tale nearly as old as time. I remember when "The Amazing Randi" was building a name for himself, publicly (and sometimes in a high-profile manner) debunking people who claimed they were skeptics or "fortune tellers" or had supernatural powers. One of the televangelists he exposed was Peter Popoff. The guy had people fill out prayer cards, and when he had live audiences, he had an earpiece connected to a wireless receiver, and his wife was transmitting the information from those prayer cards to him. Popoff tried to sell it as if he were receiving information "divinely" and was pulling the information out of thin air and had the ability to call people on stage, tell them information about themselves, their ailments and even their home addresses. They were floored, the attendees were amazed and people threw money at him. Once he was publicly debunked by Randi he lost credibility and went bankrupt, but was later making money once again, selling things like prayer cloths and miracle water.

Another was Robert Tilton. He had a program called Success-N-Life that was seen at one time on every TV market within the USA and was pulling in $80 million/year. Tilton was investigated, his fraudulent ways exposed and he, too, fell out of favor and his show was cancelled. He later moved to a few different cities where he found suckers believers who bought into his line of BS and threw money his way.
 
Really nothing new. This happens all too often in the Christian realm. In general people want to trust people and when a Christian is approached by another person claiming to also be a Christian, that 'part of the club' mentality causes less scrutiny of the person and their offer. The same could be said if a person is a member of a certain club (insert name: Lions, Kiwanas, etc.). the association typically leads to less scrutiny.

In the cases of Tilton and Popoff, there are some people who want to believe so badly that the tactics used are never questioned or checked against the Bible (because many Christians are pretty lax on reading that book...ask any pastor). I had a friend, a nice guy, that one day saw through Benny Hinn. Man was he ticked off because he had sent him lots of $$$.
 
Mikey Radio said:
This is absolutely nothing new and is truly a tale nearly as old as time. I remember when "The Amazing Randi" was building a name for himself, publicly (and sometimes in a high-profile manner) debunking people who claimed they were skeptics or "fortune tellers" or had supernatural powers. One of the televangelists he exposed was Peter Popoff. The guy had people fill out prayer cards, and when he had live audiences, he had an earpiece connected to a wireless receiver, and his wife was transmitting the information from those prayer cards to him. Popoff tried to sell it as if he were receiving information "divinely" and was pulling the information out of thin air and had the ability to call people on stage, tell them information about themselves, their ailments and even their home addresses. They were floored, the attendees were amazed and people threw money at him. Once he was publicly debunked by Randi he lost credibility and went bankrupt, but was later making money once again, selling things like prayer cloths and miracle water.

Another was Robert Tilton. He had a program called Success-N-Life that was seen at one time on every TV market within the USA and was pulling in $80 million/year. Tilton was investigated, his fraudulent ways exposed and he, too, fell out of favor and his show was cancelled. He later moved to a few different cities where he found suckers believers who bought into his line of BS and threw money his way.
Click to expand...
I last saw him at 4am somewhere on cable doing the same schtick.
 
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