Preacher power: America's God squad

Preacher power: America's God squad
Published: 17 May 2007
by Andrew Gumbel
Independent UK

The death of Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, has rocked America's evangelical movement. Andrew Gumbel examines the saints and sinners of the religious right.

Paul Crouch, Who is he?

Crouch and his wife, Janice, founded the California-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, which started small in 1973 and is now the world's largest televangelist outlet.

What's his style?

Regal. He and Jan like to appear on air on high-backed purple thrones. And the station logo is a crest based on the British lion and unicorn.

How does he keep the faithful in line?

Telling viewers if they don't pay up they could spend eternity in the flames of Hell. "If you have been healed or saved or blessed through TBN and have not contributed to [the] station," he said on air in 1997, "you are robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven."

Juicy scandal?

Plenty of it. Three years ago, Crouch paid $425,000 (£215,000) to a former employee who accused him of trying to lure him into a gay sexual tryst. He made another pay-out to a terminally ill woman who accused him of ripping off her idea for the end-of-the-world movie The Omega Code, which TBN released in 1999. And the Crouches have been accused of wildly lavish spending on their offices and on their $5m oceanfront home, with its six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, billiard room, climate-controlled wine cellar, six-car garage, tennis court and pool with a fountain.

Jim & Tammy Bakker

Who are they?

The Bakkers founded Praise The Lord television, which started out as a joint venture with Crouch's TBN, and also ran the world's first religious theme park, Heritage USA, outside Charlotte.

What was their style?

Big hair, big mikes, wide ties, loud outfits and, in Tammy's case, spectacular fake eyelashes and a thirst for Diet Coke.

How did they keep the faithful in line?

With showbiz glitz - and what Frances FitzGerald in The New Yorker described as a shamelessness "so pure as to almost amount to a kind of innocence". Jim once boasted: "We're gonna broadcast 24 hours a day until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!"

Juicy scandal?

Yup. Jim admitted he had slept with a former Playboy model, Jessica Hahn, and then tried to cover it up with a cheque for $265,000. Tammy, meanwhile, confessed she was addicted to prescription drugs. In the wake of those scandals, stories emerged of their lavish lifestyle, right down to a gold-plated dog kennel. Jerry Falwell bought their station and pushed them off air, calling Jim Bakker "the greatest scab and cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of Church history". Jim ended up in prison for fraud, Tammy got cancer and, on the rebound, got divorced and married Jim's best friend. Some, including the film-makers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, say the Bakkers were not nearly as bad as their press would suggest.

Ted Haggard

Who is he?

Founder of New Life Church in Colorado Springs and former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, with unusually good access to the Bush White House. These days, though, he is Exhibit A for the hypocrisy of the evangelical movement.

What's his style?

In public, bog-standard gay-bashing, family values-spouting fundamentalism. In private, snorting crystal meth and fantasising about all-male gang-bangs.

How does he keep the faithful in line?

These days, with great difficulty. On the eve of the November 2006 elections, a gay prostitute went public detailing three years of sexual encounters with the married preacher. First Haggard denied it, then admitted it.

Juicy scandal?

It doesn't get juicier. The prostitute, Mike Jones, said he came forward when he found out the true identity of his client, as he was enraged by his hypocrisy. After several days of denials, Haggard issued a statement saying: "I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life."

Pat Robertson

Who is he?

Founder of the Christian Coalition, the most powerful evangelical lobbying group in Washington, a former presidential candidate and a broadcaster known for his tirades against gays, liberals and Muslims.

What's his style?

Southern gentleman, with an eloquent line of bigotry to match. He once described feminism as a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians".

How does he keep the faithful in line?

His daily broadcast, The 700 Club, goes out on ABC's Family Channel. Robertson also appeals to America's inner conspiracy nut, believing the world has been steered awry by the Illuminati - a secret order of Freemasons and Jews. He has also claimed the power to divert hurricanes and cure Aids through the power of prayer.

Juicy scandal?

Robertson provokes outrage with his opinions, and his questionable friendships with violent extremists such as the late Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. A former Republican congressman once accused him of lying about his war record in Korea, and a fellow veteran in that conflict testified under oath that he had slept with prostitutes and sexually harassed a maid.

Oral Roberts

Who is he?

A Pentecostalist healer and founder of Oral Roberts University, a fundamentalist college in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

What's his style?

He's big on the laying of hands - specifically his right hand, which he claims can cure cancer and other serious illnesses.

How does he keep the faithful in line?

He told his followers in 1987 that if he didn't raise $8m by the following March, God would "call him home". Roberts claimed he made the deadline with three hours to go, thanks to a $1.3m donation from a dog track owner. Miraculously, he did not die.

Juicy scandal?

One critic said he had gathered evidence that the "cripples" who claimed to be healed by him on television were healthy and paid for their services. Another, a Presbyterian pastor from Philadelphia, said not one of three "doctors" pictured congratulating Roberts on his healing powers "could be identified as doctors of medicine".

Joel Osteen

Who is he?

The upcoming superstar of the American evangelical movement, based at the non-denominational Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas.

What's his style?

Upbeat and inspirational, more Tony Robbins than Jerry Falwell. His slogan is: "Discover the champion in you." His church's theme song is "We Are The Champions" by Queen. He said once: "I think for years there's been a lot of hellfire and damnation. You go to church to figure out what you're doing wrong and you leave feeling bad like you're not going to make it... We believe in focusing on the goodness of God... I think it's a place of life and victory. They want to be encouraged and uplifted."

How does he keep the faithful in line?

By telling them Christianity will make them rich and happy. He's been accused of preaching a "prosperity gospel"; of not insisting that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way to reach heaven; of using his smile and charisma to hand out candyfloss theology - sweet but insubstantial. Still, the faithful lap it up. His church had to move into a convention centre to accommodate the crowds, which can be as high as 30,000.

Juicy scandal?

None so far.

Billy Graham

Who is he?

Perhaps the most influential Southern Baptist in history, a preacher, evangelist and adviser to nine presidents.

What's his style?

In his heyday, a powerful gift for rhetoric that prompted hundreds of people to convert at his rallies. He is credited with building church organisations the world over, not just in the United States.

How does he keep his faithful in line?

Having powerful friends has always helped. He was spotted early on by the press barons William Randolph Hearst and Henry Luce, who thought he would be helpful in promoting their conservative, anti-Communist views. He also makes a point of living a life of modesty.

Juicy scandals?

Not too many. He struck up a friendship with North Korea's former leader, Kim Il-Sung, calling him "a different kind of communist", and exchanged gifts with his son, Kim Jong-Il. On the Nixon tapes, he is overheard opining that Jews had a "stranglehold" on the US media and were causing the country to go "down the drain" - words for which he later apologised. In 1993 he told a crowd in Ohio he saw Aids as God's judgement on sinners, but later withdrew the remark.

Jimmy Swaggart

Who is he?

A televangelist from Louisiana who hit popularity in the 1980s and is still active today. He is also Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin.

What's his style?

Bombastic. During his most famous speech, in which he begged forgiveness for sleeping with a prostitute in 1988, thick tears ran down his face as he acknowledged: "I have sinned."

How does he keep the faithful in line?

These days, by appealing to their worst instincts. Following the 11 September attacks, he called Mohamed a "sex deviant" and a paedophile, advocated racial profiling of Arabs - everyone, in his words, "with a diaper on their head and a fan-belt around their waist"

Juicy scandal?

The 1988 sex scandal was one of the defining moments of its decade - not least because of it arose from a nasty rivalry with a fellow evangelist called Marvin Gorman.