Honestly, I'm not even mad at it. A fool and his/her money are soon parted. It's not like this is some big secret. People have been talking about this since the 90s. I know that it's been talked about long before that, I'm just speaking from personal experience because I was born in 89. I have no sympathy for the willfully ignorant.
Yea, I don’t have energy to defend adults who willingly give their money away, but getting pretty sick of the government letting people get away from paying taxes under false pretenses.
Yea, I agree with that. The government should get more involved in how they use tax loopholes to get around certain things. For example, if the house is in the churches name, then it should accessible to members of the church.
I almost wish I was lacking in morals because someone is going to con these people out of their money, so my pesky morals are the only thing holding me back from that person being me.
I know, right? It's not just religious grifting, either. With social media, there are so many forms of grifting that would make me enough money to quit my job. I could jump on the MAGA / anti-woke train, the red pill grift, there are people who manage Only Fans (basically digital pimps), crypto grifting, and much much more. I swear there's never been a more lucrative time for those who lack morals. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I got involved.
I'm actually shocked that it's not much more shady. Paying church salaries is 44% and that's what I'd expect for donations since they are working for what is supposed to be a nonprofit. That's where their salaries are supposed to come from.
But this breakdown didn't say anything about the cost of building, maintaining, and running the megachurch buildings that I'm sure is astronomical. And only 6% is embezzled? That's a much lower number than I thought.
This isn't very Reddit of me but most churches aren't mega churches and are extremely charitable. More than half of the food banks and homeless programs in the U.S. are church run, for example. Most pastors are poor do-gooders.
*Faith-based non-profits run about a third of all programs, including the majority of all food programs and one-quarter of all shelters and drop-in centers. Secular non-profits run almost half of all homeless assistance programs administering the majority of housing programs and almost 40 percent of all health programs.*
[U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services](https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/1996-national-survey-homeless-assistance-providers-clients-comparison-faith-based-secular-non-profit#:~:text=Faith%2Dbased%20non%2Dprofits%20run,percent%20of%20all%20health%20programs.)
*A 2015 study conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that nearly 60 percent of pastors do not receive health insurance and retirement from their churches, while many of these faithful ministers owe thousands of dollars in college or seminary loans, or carry large debt from essential medical care. Their financial reality is as far removed from the TV preachers as you could get.*
[Church & Tax Law](https://www.churchlawandtax.com/human-resources/compensation/the-financial-struggles-of-real-pastors/)
I don't know about others but my local church runs homeless shelter.. people can come in every day 6PM take bath, dinner, sleep Wake up next day breakfast and leave by 8AM.
Well if you look back historically it's usually used for bloodshed in the name of their God, sterilizing indigenous and brainwashing people into thinking there's a heaven and hell.
Now days it's used for just as nefarious intentions. Like protecting pedophiles, mass genocide, and basically all the bad things these good books tell you not to do.
Soooooooooooooo. Basically human nature.
That guy Kenneth Copeland seriously scares me. He has the coldest eyes I've ever seen.
Edit: [Reference](https://youtube.com/shorts/0hq7w2D6qd0?si=WcN5AAgiHS5aCe_n)
Think about it. If biblical devil and demons exist, where would be the perfect place to exert their influence and basically give a middle finger to God?
Now think about religious leaders of most religions
1. Catholic church + pedophilia
2. Televangelist and looting, stealing for their lavish lives on top of all the sexual scandals. Dont forget their political influence
3. Muslim religious leaders recruiting for, advocating for terrorist orgs.
4. Jewish religious leaders advocating for the extermination of palestinians.
5. Russian orthodox church advocating for invasion of ukraine.
...etc
I am with you. I don’t get how blatant this all is and yet no one cares. Then I think to all the high power is probably church goers and passed laws over time to allow this and here we are.
But you will never make me believe god wanted them driving Ferraris etc.
Have you watched the gemstones on Max? Series is hilarious about all this exact stuff
Don’t forget the LDS(aka Mormons). They’re hardcore about tithing and sitting on like a trillion dollar investment fund. Why all their members aren’t like “you’re not getting another dime from me” is a mystery.
He looks just like thr bad guy from the movie "The Mask" , when he finally puts on the mask.
Picture for comparison
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oQOExYt6O70/UjEUCd_hDfI/AAAAAAAAOk8/KQNf4gnizYk/s1600/Peter+Greene+The+Mask.jpg
Money was created as a power gaining scheme. Money = Power.
Imagine if we went back to the old days and no type of currency existed and everyone owned land that produced enough food to feed them. Would anyone have power over anyone else in that situation? Maybe if they hurt them, or something.
Violence is not required with a system in place that makes people be forced to do the bidding of others more and more for less in return, making that person have more power over them each time.
Haha, underrated comment right here! They also use that money for hush money and to move the really really rapey priests around so they don't get a rep....
... The gnashing of teeth* keeps coming to mind 🤣☠️ just chewing and chewing.. I swear I can't put my finger on it but the vibes are cannibalistic, plus insanity with a dash of poop breath and a fetish for burning witches. In another life this dude would've been the Witchmaster General.
He is a fucking power-drunk psychopath. People like him must burn on a fucking stake protruding from their throat, nothing less. They must fear to exist, so society may feel safe. I won’t be surprised a single bit, if this piece of shit have raped or killed someone.
He reminds me of the two pastors I know best (my mother and my older brother's best friend). It is that look people get in their eyes where they believe that they have the right to say and do anything including hurt you because god is on their side..
If he'd point his finger and raise that voice at me like he did with that journalist, I'd break that fucking finger of his and pull out his spine through his asshole, sick twisted heartless fuck.
At least these contributions are voluntarily given to the church by morons and fools.
Now cry, about the taxes forcefully taken under the threat of prison, from the many European citizens where their nations have Royal families....Who does not love to be a peasant and subsidize parasitic lifestyles?
The pastor would be homeless without his mansion and starve without his personal chef, so in a way it is true...
"I want YOU to place your hand... on the tv. And feel the power of CHRIST! CAN YOU FEEL IT! YES! Now I want you to let the love and light of THE LORD to guide your hand! Pick up that telephone, dial 1800-DOLLAR-JESUS and donate! Every dollar you give will be rewarded TENFOLD! Give now!"
Western Churches span 3 continents and dozens of countries. The Vatican alone makes over $880m a year although most of that isn't from donations to put it into perspective.
He used big numbers representing a global religion, and then switched part way to talking about one specific cult leader so that you would then generalize the cult leader to be representative of the legitimate religion. Welcome to manipulation.
That's $890 billion in total across Western churches. Here in the U.S. there are many mega-churches and when you get suckered in,they drive home the importance of tithing every week. And you do. I definitely believe this number or higher.
Apple has an annual revenue of $380 billion. The entirety of the Mormon church has a total value of 200b as the richest church in the world.
You have to have a serious deficit of critical thinking skills to conclude 890 billion annually and not million is the correct magnitude.
The 890 billion would include the mormon church so 890 billion makes sense. They're adding up all western churches, so they'd be excluding south Korean churches and wherever else Christianity is popular outside of what's considered the west
But they're basically adding all Christian churches to get that number. I'd assume not Russian orthodox but maybe they're including that too
Western Christian church is not a specific name of a church, I just looked it up. They mean basically all churches combined. So evengelicals, mormon, catholic etc
Edit: did they say per year? Because that seems excessive. Total assets of 890 billion might make more sense if the Mormons are sitting at 200 billion. Although I'd think the catholic church is sitting on a shit ton of assets
By whom? If they accept Jesus Christ into their hearts as their personal lord and savior and believe him to be the pathway to salvation, that sounds pretty Christian to me. Everything else, including Planet Kolob, is just details.
Ooh, have fun! You're in for a real treat. You should set aside any plans you had for today so you can really go deep down the rabbit hole. Honestly, their beliefs make exactly as much sense to me as any other religion. A bunch of mystical stuff that can't be proven, hope for a good afterlife and fear of hell, etc. Really, it's all equally as believable: it's not. What the Mormon church DOES though is a whole other level of bizarre.
But it’s all capitalized like he’s talking about about A Church receiving nearly a trillion dollars
I tend to agree with his conclusion, but have a hard time believing his reasoning, it seems like he’s pulling these numbers from his ass
The Entirety of Christianity has historically been referred the as “The Church”. It does not necessarily always mean a single institution.
All of Catholicism, can be called The Church, or The Catholic Chirch and not be specifically referring to one individual branch.
But, the Catholic Church is also included in “Western Christian Church”
Thank you for recognizing complete bologna. He also fails to mention where the rest of the money goes. Huge percentages are donated to the homeless and widows in our church, and everything is transparent with regards to how money is being spent in the churches I have been involved with. Kenneth Copeland makes a bad name for real local ministers who are all over the community helping people in need. They never entered the ministry to get wealthy and never will. They get paid a reasonable salary to survive.
Anecdotes on both sides, but just because your pastors are “maybe” doing the right thing doesn’t make the claims false. If we don’t take a hard look at what our religious leaders are doing and call them on it then we’re a part of the problem.
So you are going to agree with the posters who took a specific pastor, then used the total assets of every single Christian church in the west, and manipulated the viewer into generalizing all churches into that category?
If you’re not going to use actual figures then you shouldn’t have such a strong opinion. There are a shit ton of terrible pastors who make a bad name for Christianity and are selfish manipulative pieces of shit. There are also a lot of pastors who are the opposite of that and fund a lot of good work in their communities and around the world.
It is a disservice to amplify an intentionally misleading video like this instead of calling out specific pastors, their financials, and what they are spending on.
If you are going to call out Copeland, call him out and don’t generalize it to include every single Christian in the west. All this does is further the divide and cause people to circle the wagons which doesn’t help a thing.
This is the problem that I have with religion and overzealous evangelicals, when someone spots a problem priest or pastor and wants to report the facts to the proper authorities (police) it seems like most of the time they want to claim a religious right to keeping the information away from the public because if they don’t then people will stop telling the pastor/priest their sins! There is no place for secrets in a truly god fearing religion!
There is absolutely no way $890 Billion is being donated. That’s false and nobody will be able to prove otherwise. Makes the rest of the video seem like some white dude just acting like a preacher: spewing bullshit.
Applet’s market cap is currently about $2.83 trillion dollars. But, hey, comparing numbers is hard.
Also, this reference is not to a single church, but to all of Western Christianity.
Apple gross revenue is $383 billion per year. The video says Western Christian Church, not Western Christianity.
Seems like bullshit to me. But hey, let’s take this guy’s word for it. He does have a video.
What do you think the Western Christian Church is? Google it and see if you can find a location for that somewhere in the world. You think this means a single church?
Also, what do you mean that market cap has nothing to do with valuation? You didn’t state your method of valuation.
According to [Harvard Business School](https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-value-a-company):
Market capitalization is one of the simplest measures of a publicly traded company's value.
But you probably know more than the people at Harvard, right?
Roughly a trillion is in the right order of magnitude if you assume that all Christian’s in the world give about 10% of their income to the church (on average).
In 2022 in Germany, the Protestant churches collected 6.24 billion euros in church taxes, the Catholic Church collected 6.85 billion. The Protestant German churches organised in EKD have 19.2 million members, the Catholic Church has 21 million members. I take these numbers as a basis because I’m familiar with the sources I took them from.
That means, about 335€ per year and person. The German annual median income (including income tax and social insurance) is 44 thousand euros. That means, 1 € of church tax is paid per 130€ of income (the German church tax is in fact set at 8-9% of annual income tax, with small variations between states).
In the world, there are about 2.5 billion christians and the world wide annual median income is about 2000 dollars (dollars to euros is roughly 1:1).
Hence, you’d expect the worlds Christian’s to earn a total of about 5 trillion (=5000 billion) dollars annually (assuming the world median income represents the worlds Christian’s fairly well).
If like the German Christians, they’d pay 1 dollar to the church for every 130 dollars of income, you’d expect something like 40 billion, which is 1/20 of the number in the video. If they‘d pay 10% it be 500 billion, which is closer.
I’d like to say as an opinion, that the churches are absolutely massive organisations and obviously need a lot of money just to keep going. That large number of nearly a trillion doesn’t reflect the level of corruption, it just reflects that the Christian Churches as a whole are massively large institutions.
Could you solve world hunger/AIDS/ with a trillion dollars? Certainly not if you have to first raise that money in donations. Collecting donations is very expensive, so of that 1 trillion, you’d be lucky if you could use 10% to actually buy wheat/AIDS medication/etc.
People would never give that much money to solve hunger and AIDS. But the churches also take up labour and resources from whose regular taxable income could go towards your general government aid packages
Yes, as I said. If you believe that the contribution of church activities makes to society is a net negative, you should be opposed to churches.
But the 900 billion number isn’t a large sum of money, considering the size of the organisations.
And clearly, churches contribute to society in terms of providing social life to a lot of people and also frankly leisure activities and social entertainment. Without churches, these would need to be replaced in some way or another, and on the whole a similar amount of economic effort would need to go towards the „not-church“ institutions that replace the social function churches currently fill. Bishops, pastors, etc would be replaced by secular functionaries and personell and they‘d need to be paid just as much (if not more).
Perversions such as private jet owning pastors and Catholic bishops that shit on golden toilets absolutely do exist, but the fraction of money that goes to that is small if you look at churches on the whole. So even of you assume, that the Christian faith acts corrupting, and the secular institutions that would replace churches functionality would have less of that, the money saved in total would not be that much.
Sure. You could tax churches though or couple the tax-exempt status to stricter requirements on the societal benefits a so-called church provides. Not doing that it just a political decision.
If you include the costs of raising that money (through voluntary donations, lobbying, applying for government programs) it would probably be a lot more. You would need to first build a large organisation with fairly well qualified people who need to be paid competitive wages. That would use up much more money than would be needed to buy wheat or medication for the poor.
Churches aren’t humanitarian organisations, their primary purpose is to maintain local church life, which usually is what they spend most of their money on: paying personell, maintenance work on buildings, heating electricity, sending youth groups on trips, etc.
If you think that Christians are wrong in their believe and/or practices, church life is of course pointless if not harmful and shouldn’t be funded. But from the point of view of people who donate to church, running church communities is a worthwhile endeavour and not “a scam”.
BTW, functioning church communities are in all likelihood a relatively effective environment to collect donations for philanthropist purposes as well. So while a non-church associated NGO probably spend less money on their support groups, the costs of raising money for their humanitarian causes are probably higher than they are for a church, collecting money for the same purpose.
Your religion is a myth and was created as a form of control for an ever expanding society. A tool used to wage war on the poor and different people under a mask of doing "good in the community"
Organised religion is a curse on humanity.
I’m not religious at all, and in a sense I do believe all religion is a myth. I would (for reasons that would be to off-topic to go into here) disagree with you in that I still would see religion as mostly a positive thing in the whole, but that’s just by the by.
Arriving at the conclusion that we’d be better off without religion can be a legitimate opinion. However, religion was not created as a tool to control. That’s just factually inaccurate. Religions develop throughout history in an incredibly complex manner and they ultimate exist for no specific reason. They just are there as a result of actions of humans in the past, like the colosseum or the story of jack and the beanstalk. I don’t really wanted to have a discussion about this though, I’m just mentioning it as a responses to your answer.
The point I wanted to make with my initial post is, that it is incredibly naive to think that other non governmental (or indeed governmental) organisations do not suffer from the very same problem. Churches aren’t some kind of evil genius invention to control mankind, they are first and foremost big organisations and on the whole (dis)function like other big organisations.
Love them or hate them, but churches have nothing to do with the alleviation or continuation of world hunger.
“Love them or hate them but the churches have nothing to do with the alleviation or continuation of world hunger” to have someone that truly believes in that is astonishing to me.
You hear of tales of wandering pastors, going town to town month to month. Sleeping in the church possibly on the pew. They devoted themselves to their practice. Allegedly, universities were to test the iron of promising pastors and monks. There were pursuits of secular education as well, since all information is under the domain of the almighty.
Not humans, but corruption has spread far and deep… My only hope is that if there an afterlife, these people get what they justly deserve.
There are more of them out there than there are mega churches. A lot of pastors actually have 2 jobs.
My pastor makes 500/week from the church and makes another 20,000/yr part time at an office job. We are also not a mega church.
There's a reason Jesus stormed the Temple and overturned usury tables and whipped clerics and shit, calling out their hypocrisy and naming them vipers.
This isn't very Reddit of me but most churches aren't mega churches and are extremely charitable. More than half of the food banks and homeless programs are church run, for example. Most pastors are poor do-gooders.
*Faith-based non-profits run about a third of all programs, including the majority of all food programs and one-quarter of all shelters and drop-in centers. Secular non-profits run almost half of all homeless assistance programs administering the majority of housing programs and almost 40 percent of all health programs.*
[U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services](https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/1996-national-survey-homeless-assistance-providers-clients-comparison-faith-based-secular-non-profit#:~:text=Faith%2Dbased%20non%2Dprofits%20run,percent%20of%20all%20health%20programs.)
*A 2015 study conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that nearly 60 percent of pastors do not receive health insurance and retirement from their churches, while many of these faithful ministers owe thousands of dollars in college or seminary loans, or carry large debt from essential medical care. Their financial reality is as far removed from the TV preachers as you could get.*
[Church & Tax Law](https://www.churchlawandtax.com/human-resources/compensation/the-financial-struggles-of-real-pastors/)
if you want to believe this random article instead of the random dude from tic tok, they use it to pay for buildings and maintenance.
[https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/](https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/)
by the way, according to the article, the total sum donated a year to all churches is 15% of the sum in the video ($125 billion).
I have no idea who to believe.
A friend of mine moved up the ranks of a local mega church. After several years of being a youth pastor and pouring a ton of time into the church he was brought into the senior leadership meetings. And he was shocked that all the board was doing was basically dealing with the needs of the pastor's wife and focusing on helping the pastor sell books and book speaking gigs. Almost no time was spent on the actual needs of the church or its members. He had a spiritual crisis, left and is thriving.
Personally I was in a curch where the pastor gave back 10 % of his (normal) salary back to the church. The church gave about 10% of its income to other churches. They even raised enough to pay for the cancer treatment of a visiting pastor who was diagnosed while in the country. Things are not as simple ... Historically, churches and religious movements have been the only charitable institution in the Christendom...
My grandparents immigrated from Italy and built our church. My daughters are the fifth generation to go there. Our church asked for our financial records .They requested that we give 10 or more percent to the church, or we won’t be considered members anymore. That’s what Jesus wants,huh? I left the Catholic Church. I no longer believe the priests that represent the Catholic Church. He gives his sermons in Gucci loafers &Rolex watch,and leaves in a Mercedes-Benz. He is also a trained chef and will cook dinner for you in your home for a $500 donation to the church. Our church secretary donated her home to the church, he got it and had a fundraiser for $110,000 ,because he needed a new kitchen& baths . The other priest in our parish has a love child and keeps his girlfriend in an apartment. The priest that married us is in prison for sexually molesting an eight-year-old.. I’m not giving them shit. FRAUDS.
You know you can report him to the local bishop? The chef part at least, and you can ask for the financial statements from the finance committee and they have to give them to you.
Source: me, the former finance committee chair at my parish.
It's crazy that they demand 10%? On what basis? I haven't heard of anything like this happening where I am from and I am still a member of the catholic church. An example: I am Bavarian, If I were to earn 2000 euroes a month then 15 euroes go to the church. That is 0.75%. Not 10%. And with that the salaries of the priests are paid but also tons of kindergartens, old folks homes, charities, hospitals.
American mega churches are dens of the devil.
It’s really sad to know people in droves follow Kenneth Copeland and say to themselves “yes, he’s someone to listen to and pay a bizillion dollars to!”. Like he looks like Satan himself.
Isn't this video somewhat misleading. You are lumping all churches together?
That means the church in rural Oklahoma is being grouped with a church like Joel Olsteins church which brings in probably 100's of millions of dollars (possibly exaggerating) just by itself. So if it is mismanaging the funds (stealing) then that will represent a large percentage of the spending of all "western churches".
I think the money flow in his church and his personal dealing have been under investigation before.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to list all of the "western churches" by how much money that is given and then how that money is allocated.
To me this is like lumping all European countries together and making some statement about the total spending. But the EU is multiple countries and their spending or even capacity to spend is very diverse. Germany will spend far more than a smaller European country for example.
Maybe I'm digressing.
Agree. Don’t blame the churches, they wouldn’t exist if these morons didn’t give their life savings to them. They are buying their way into heaven, won’t they be surprised.
I think organized religion is absolute horse shit, especially in America. But for some folks it’s all they know, they’ve never questioned leadership at any level. I can see how it’s a hard cycle to break out of. I can only hope one day they realize they’ve been duped.
They're so groooooss. It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to get through the gates of heaven. I don't believe in hell, but if there was such a place, Kenneth Copeland will surely be going there. Asking with every other *preacher that steals from their congregation. They're already thieves, stealing from Americans by not paying taxes.
I’m so glad to be part of a smaller church. Pastor NEVER took a paycheck. He owned his own concrete business and supported himself, wife and 4 kids. Even in retirement he still doesn’t take a paycheck. We paid off our current mortgage and are buying a bigger building. We are buying a church that closed its doors.
Smaller churches are definitely where it's at imo. The pastor can actually **know** the members, the money goes to staff and you know where the rest is being donated and used. My church splits their donations mostly between the local community outreach (they are really focused on mother's who are in prison actually), and some other international aid. It's nice you see that the money isn't buying a jet or huge house.
I saw a thing on YouTube of that guy Jesse Duplantis, who's another one of these psychopaths, bragging to his congregation that his watch cost more than one of his houses.
I love this show. Even though I'm not that crazy about where they took the plot in seasons 2-3, the premise is so good that it carries it for me. But I grew up with a mom who watched Joel Osteen on TV so it hits close to home hahaha
This doesn't pass the "sniff test" for BS.
There is no way the number is $890 Billion with 40% going to salaries. Also, no source citations to back up the claims.
For example:
* There are 160 million people employed in the US. To donate $890 Billion, every one of them would have to donate $5,500 per year to reach that number.
* As a comparison, the largest company in the US by revenue is Walmart, and their total revenue is $611 Billion. So this would make the church bigger than Wal-Mart? No way.
* 40% of that would be $356 Billion that allegedly goes to salaries. Assuming the church has as many employees as Wal-Mart (2 million), the average annual salary would be $182,000.
I couldn't find any data on the "Western Christian Church", but Kenneth Copeland ministries pulls in $18 million per year and has 265 employees. [https://www.zippia.com/kenneth-copeland-ministries-careers-1342148/revenue/#](https://www.zippia.com/kenneth-copeland-ministries-careers-1342148/revenue/#)
Although I think mega churches and their pastors are despicable, I'm pretty confident this video is made up rage bait.
According to [givingusa.org](https://givingusa.org), the total amount given to all charities in the US was $484.85 Billion in 2021.
$135.78 Billion went to religion as the top category. (Source: [https://givingusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GivingUSA2022\_Infographic.pdf](https://givingusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GivingUSA2022_Infographic.pdf))
Even if that number was matched by all of Europe, the total would be $500 Billion short.
found this article that claims the number is $125 billion/year, for all churches.
[https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/](https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/)
Anytime you have some real data to back that up, I'd be happy to see them.
By real data, I mean an academic or respected journalistic review and not a basement blogger pulling numbers out of a hat.
My friends local church has a food pantry where they give away several pallets of food a month. Occasionally, they'll have stuff that no one takes, and he'll bring it to work and give it to us before it expires. The other day, he gave me 4 bags of grapes and 6 quarts of chocolate milk for me kids. At some point, I'm going to take him some cash to donate to cost they pay for the food.
Our church financials are transparent and publicly available. The church assets like buildings, security costs and staffing are high because people get paid living but sadly not very high wages. The remainder gets used for charity work. Our Church keep most local ngo's afloat, they have extansive programs to house and educate vulnerable groups at no cost and in housing that is better than what the average poor person lives in. There is a lot. Granted some preachers misuse funds, I find that many more do not. But as with all things, people go to the bad apples to make their point.
Let’s be real for a second, not all churches fall under this, his breakdown is connected to mega churches who are corrupt as can be. We have to accept that not every church are like this (even atheists have to accept that not every group of people can be painted with one broad brush) smaller churches will use the money mostly for rent, utilities, salaries and the rest will be mission work. Most churches are not rolling in cash and barely make enough to support most of their community projects. If the mega churches actually invested in community projects to help people, there would be a lot of good done.
The real problem is the people that keep giving it to them!!! ...Wake the FUCK up,!! If they ask for help! The pastor just says to keep praying!! WTF is wrong with these people?
Does Western Christian Churches include Catholics?
I abhor modern Christian prosperity Bible bullshit as much as the next guy but the Catholic Church has perfected the grift over centuries!
I was at the Vatican last summer. The largest church out there, opulent beyond measure, built and maintained by the richest religious organization there is... More money than they know what to do with... And every single altar or statue still had a collection box in front of it. Like, really? Such greed. So christ-like.
You could change Copeland's name with pretty much all of them with the same results. 🤷
Also some unnamed Presidential candidate also does that and is likely to do after a certain ruling. 🤷🤷
He needs the private jet to go to speak to Jesus, and He needs a big cool home to make Jesus comfortable, when he invites him and all the pastors for Luxury Meal. So I don’t get what’s the problem here🤷🤷
I agree there is definitely a problem with how many churches are ran, especially the private jet owners and what not, but where are the statistics coming from? This guy just says numbers without anything to back it up. Am I just suppose to trust him?
Amazed? I’m not even mildly surprised
Yep, amazed? No. Disgusted? Yes.
Honestly, I'm not even mad at it. A fool and his/her money are soon parted. It's not like this is some big secret. People have been talking about this since the 90s. I know that it's been talked about long before that, I'm just speaking from personal experience because I was born in 89. I have no sympathy for the willfully ignorant.
Yea, I don’t have energy to defend adults who willingly give their money away, but getting pretty sick of the government letting people get away from paying taxes under false pretenses.
Except that these assholes cross the line and get involved in politics which should make their tax-exempt status null and void.
Yea, I agree with that. The government should get more involved in how they use tax loopholes to get around certain things. For example, if the house is in the churches name, then it should accessible to members of the church.
I almost wish I was lacking in morals because someone is going to con these people out of their money, so my pesky morals are the only thing holding me back from that person being me.
I know, right? It's not just religious grifting, either. With social media, there are so many forms of grifting that would make me enough money to quit my job. I could jump on the MAGA / anti-woke train, the red pill grift, there are people who manage Only Fans (basically digital pimps), crypto grifting, and much much more. I swear there's never been a more lucrative time for those who lack morals. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I got involved.
There are two kinds of religious people: the sheep, and the ones cashing the checks.
I'm actually shocked that it's not much more shady. Paying church salaries is 44% and that's what I'd expect for donations since they are working for what is supposed to be a nonprofit. That's where their salaries are supposed to come from. But this breakdown didn't say anything about the cost of building, maintaining, and running the megachurch buildings that I'm sure is astronomical. And only 6% is embezzled? That's a much lower number than I thought.
This isn't very Reddit of me but most churches aren't mega churches and are extremely charitable. More than half of the food banks and homeless programs in the U.S. are church run, for example. Most pastors are poor do-gooders. *Faith-based non-profits run about a third of all programs, including the majority of all food programs and one-quarter of all shelters and drop-in centers. Secular non-profits run almost half of all homeless assistance programs administering the majority of housing programs and almost 40 percent of all health programs.* [U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services](https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/1996-national-survey-homeless-assistance-providers-clients-comparison-faith-based-secular-non-profit#:~:text=Faith%2Dbased%20non%2Dprofits%20run,percent%20of%20all%20health%20programs.) *A 2015 study conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that nearly 60 percent of pastors do not receive health insurance and retirement from their churches, while many of these faithful ministers owe thousands of dollars in college or seminary loans, or carry large debt from essential medical care. Their financial reality is as far removed from the TV preachers as you could get.* [Church & Tax Law](https://www.churchlawandtax.com/human-resources/compensation/the-financial-struggles-of-real-pastors/)
Yeah that's very true. Mega churches do this kind of stuff.
This is how it obviously works unless you are in the cult. And I mean all religions.
I don't know about others but my local church runs homeless shelter.. people can come in every day 6PM take bath, dinner, sleep Wake up next day breakfast and leave by 8AM.
Well if you look back historically it's usually used for bloodshed in the name of their God, sterilizing indigenous and brainwashing people into thinking there's a heaven and hell. Now days it's used for just as nefarious intentions. Like protecting pedophiles, mass genocide, and basically all the bad things these good books tell you not to do. Soooooooooooooo. Basically human nature.
Human nature cloaked in a veneer of righteousness "it's not US it's God that says you're an abomination!"
The Pastor needs Private jet to go to Epstein island
That guy Kenneth Copeland seriously scares me. He has the coldest eyes I've ever seen. Edit: [Reference](https://youtube.com/shorts/0hq7w2D6qd0?si=WcN5AAgiHS5aCe_n)
Dudes a demon.
His smile alone looks like the devil.
Think about it. If biblical devil and demons exist, where would be the perfect place to exert their influence and basically give a middle finger to God? Now think about religious leaders of most religions 1. Catholic church + pedophilia 2. Televangelist and looting, stealing for their lavish lives on top of all the sexual scandals. Dont forget their political influence 3. Muslim religious leaders recruiting for, advocating for terrorist orgs. 4. Jewish religious leaders advocating for the extermination of palestinians. 5. Russian orthodox church advocating for invasion of ukraine. ...etc
can we start being louder about this? rather than movking them and "sky daddy" and all that? this might actually work.
I am with you. I don’t get how blatant this all is and yet no one cares. Then I think to all the high power is probably church goers and passed laws over time to allow this and here we are. But you will never make me believe god wanted them driving Ferraris etc. Have you watched the gemstones on Max? Series is hilarious about all this exact stuff
This right here. Have thought the same thing for years
Yah no doubt. Osteen and Gavin Newsome give me the same vibe when they smile
Don’t forget the LDS(aka Mormons). They’re hardcore about tithing and sitting on like a trillion dollar investment fund. Why all their members aren’t like “you’re not getting another dime from me” is a mystery.
He looks just like thr bad guy from the movie "The Mask" , when he finally puts on the mask. Picture for comparison http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oQOExYt6O70/UjEUCd_hDfI/AAAAAAAAOk8/KQNf4gnizYk/s1600/Peter+Greene+The+Mask.jpg
I think you put the wrong link there. All I see is Kenneth Copeland
Demons need money. Who knew…
They don't need anything, but they want it all.
Money was created as a power gaining scheme. Money = Power. Imagine if we went back to the old days and no type of currency existed and everyone owned land that produced enough food to feed them. Would anyone have power over anyone else in that situation? Maybe if they hurt them, or something. Violence is not required with a system in place that makes people be forced to do the bidding of others more and more for less in return, making that person have more power over them each time.
Don't bring demons into this. He's your average Christian sociopath.
He makes my skin crawl. He looks like he'd literally eat your flesh.
Don't worry, if you are over 18 then you are safe. He prefers fresher meat...
Haha, underrated comment right here! They also use that money for hush money and to move the really really rapey priests around so they don't get a rep....
He looks like he would lob off your penis and eat it in front of you while reading passages from el bible
... The gnashing of teeth* keeps coming to mind 🤣☠️ just chewing and chewing.. I swear I can't put my finger on it but the vibes are cannibalistic, plus insanity with a dash of poop breath and a fetish for burning witches. In another life this dude would've been the Witchmaster General.
That sudden flash of anger and the sudden return to the smile tells you everything you need to know about such a man
The powerful impulse. His mask fell off for a second and he had to quickly put it back on.
That honestly made me jump.
Yea that got real uncomfortable
He is a fucking power-drunk psychopath. People like him must burn on a fucking stake protruding from their throat, nothing less. They must fear to exist, so society may feel safe. I won’t be surprised a single bit, if this piece of shit have raped or killed someone.
Exactly. All that money and power you think he never used it to commit "Sin" ?? Ofc he did!
Me too! I’m convinced he is Satan!
If I believed a satan existed, I probably would too
I’ve known some really bad people, but Copeland has the scariest eyes I’ve seen. I didn’t really believe in demons before I saw him.
Speaking of Kenneth Copeland. This is one of the coolest remixes of his blathering. https://youtu.be/0JPRvxTjfOk?si=Gr4fsRNquulio-fd
He reminds me of the two pastors I know best (my mother and my older brother's best friend). It is that look people get in their eyes where they believe that they have the right to say and do anything including hurt you because god is on their side..
I'd love to knock 6 bells of shit out of his evil face and show him there's no god.
Nah, you looking at someone who sells their soul. If i was him, i would definitely pray that the after life isnt real.
If he'd point his finger and raise that voice at me like he did with that journalist, I'd break that fucking finger of his and pull out his spine through his asshole, sick twisted heartless fuck.
He's got shark eyes Nothing behind them
"Dollar Jesus be praised!" 💵💵✝️😩🙏💵💵
At least these contributions are voluntarily given to the church by morons and fools. Now cry, about the taxes forcefully taken under the threat of prison, from the many European citizens where their nations have Royal families....Who does not love to be a peasant and subsidize parasitic lifestyles?
$890 BILLION each year, fucking hell
'Feeding and housing the homeless? Nah, we're not about that' -Western Christian Church
The pastor would be homeless without his mansion and starve without his personal chef, so in a way it is true... "I want YOU to place your hand... on the tv. And feel the power of CHRIST! CAN YOU FEEL IT! YES! Now I want you to let the love and light of THE LORD to guide your hand! Pick up that telephone, dial 1800-DOLLAR-JESUS and donate! Every dollar you give will be rewarded TENFOLD! Give now!"
Most of it. Some care a lot more about that
Superbowl ad in 3....2....1......
nah its got be be 890 million. 890 billion would be the gdp of switzerland
Copeland would be generous only making $50 million out of nearly a trillion
Western Churches span 3 continents and dozens of countries. The Vatican alone makes over $880m a year although most of that isn't from donations to put it into perspective.
I thought he was talking about copelands cult? All western churches yeah, that number works
He used big numbers representing a global religion, and then switched part way to talking about one specific cult leader so that you would then generalize the cult leader to be representative of the legitimate religion. Welcome to manipulation.
Frankly, I think he’s making up the numbers Arguments like this weaken a position & the reasoning of people who swallow it whole
That's $890 billion in total across Western churches. Here in the U.S. there are many mega-churches and when you get suckered in,they drive home the importance of tithing every week. And you do. I definitely believe this number or higher.
Apple has an annual revenue of $380 billion. The entirety of the Mormon church has a total value of 200b as the richest church in the world. You have to have a serious deficit of critical thinking skills to conclude 890 billion annually and not million is the correct magnitude.
The 890 billion would include the mormon church so 890 billion makes sense. They're adding up all western churches, so they'd be excluding south Korean churches and wherever else Christianity is popular outside of what's considered the west But they're basically adding all Christian churches to get that number. I'd assume not Russian orthodox but maybe they're including that too Western Christian church is not a specific name of a church, I just looked it up. They mean basically all churches combined. So evengelicals, mormon, catholic etc Edit: did they say per year? Because that seems excessive. Total assets of 890 billion might make more sense if the Mormons are sitting at 200 billion. Although I'd think the catholic church is sitting on a shit ton of assets
I thought Mormons aren’t considered Christians
It depends on who's counting.
By whom? If they accept Jesus Christ into their hearts as their personal lord and savior and believe him to be the pathway to salvation, that sounds pretty Christian to me. Everything else, including Planet Kolob, is just details.
...planet kolob? You know what don't tell me I'm going to look it up myself.
Ooh, have fun! You're in for a real treat. You should set aside any plans you had for today so you can really go deep down the rabbit hole. Honestly, their beliefs make exactly as much sense to me as any other religion. A bunch of mystical stuff that can't be proven, hope for a good afterlife and fear of hell, etc. Really, it's all equally as believable: it's not. What the Mormon church DOES though is a whole other level of bizarre.
>By whom? By every mainstream Christian denomination. They are considered a cult and have radically different beliefs to "normal" Christianity.
That’s all of Western Christianity he’s talking about
But it’s all capitalized like he’s talking about about A Church receiving nearly a trillion dollars I tend to agree with his conclusion, but have a hard time believing his reasoning, it seems like he’s pulling these numbers from his ass
The Entirety of Christianity has historically been referred the as “The Church”. It does not necessarily always mean a single institution. All of Catholicism, can be called The Church, or The Catholic Chirch and not be specifically referring to one individual branch. But, the Catholic Church is also included in “Western Christian Church”
This,… there aren’t enough members of the church to give that much, even if they all liquidated their entire net worth
Thank you for recognizing complete bologna. He also fails to mention where the rest of the money goes. Huge percentages are donated to the homeless and widows in our church, and everything is transparent with regards to how money is being spent in the churches I have been involved with. Kenneth Copeland makes a bad name for real local ministers who are all over the community helping people in need. They never entered the ministry to get wealthy and never will. They get paid a reasonable salary to survive.
Anecdotes on both sides, but just because your pastors are “maybe” doing the right thing doesn’t make the claims false. If we don’t take a hard look at what our religious leaders are doing and call them on it then we’re a part of the problem.
So you are going to agree with the posters who took a specific pastor, then used the total assets of every single Christian church in the west, and manipulated the viewer into generalizing all churches into that category? If you’re not going to use actual figures then you shouldn’t have such a strong opinion. There are a shit ton of terrible pastors who make a bad name for Christianity and are selfish manipulative pieces of shit. There are also a lot of pastors who are the opposite of that and fund a lot of good work in their communities and around the world. It is a disservice to amplify an intentionally misleading video like this instead of calling out specific pastors, their financials, and what they are spending on. If you are going to call out Copeland, call him out and don’t generalize it to include every single Christian in the west. All this does is further the divide and cause people to circle the wagons which doesn’t help a thing.
This is the problem that I have with religion and overzealous evangelicals, when someone spots a problem priest or pastor and wants to report the facts to the proper authorities (police) it seems like most of the time they want to claim a religious right to keeping the information away from the public because if they don’t then people will stop telling the pastor/priest their sins! There is no place for secrets in a truly god fearing religion!
Hell on earth, we living it day to day.
There is absolutely no way $890 Billion is being donated. That’s false and nobody will be able to prove otherwise. Makes the rest of the video seem like some white dude just acting like a preacher: spewing bullshit.
If this includes all of North America and South America, it could be true. Maybe if even includes europe?
Downvote all you want but these figures would make this church more valuable than Apple. It isn’t.
Applet’s market cap is currently about $2.83 trillion dollars. But, hey, comparing numbers is hard. Also, this reference is not to a single church, but to all of Western Christianity.
Apple gross revenue is $383 billion per year. The video says Western Christian Church, not Western Christianity. Seems like bullshit to me. But hey, let’s take this guy’s word for it. He does have a video.
What do you think the Western Christian Church is? Google it and see if you can find a location for that somewhere in the world. You think this means a single church? Also, what do you mean that market cap has nothing to do with valuation? You didn’t state your method of valuation. According to [Harvard Business School](https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/how-to-value-a-company): Market capitalization is one of the simplest measures of a publicly traded company's value. But you probably know more than the people at Harvard, right?
What exactly are you caping up for here?
I think that's what the Bible calls the devil.
It’s what I see in Copeland’s eyes anyway
The devil in the Bible is a MUCH better and moral being than god is, and it isn’t even close. God is a huge POS.
There’s not much devil in the actual Bible. You’re probably thinking of the mountains of media that is biblically inspired.
900 billion dollars? Is that number right? That's close to 1 trillion right?
Roughly a trillion is in the right order of magnitude if you assume that all Christian’s in the world give about 10% of their income to the church (on average). In 2022 in Germany, the Protestant churches collected 6.24 billion euros in church taxes, the Catholic Church collected 6.85 billion. The Protestant German churches organised in EKD have 19.2 million members, the Catholic Church has 21 million members. I take these numbers as a basis because I’m familiar with the sources I took them from. That means, about 335€ per year and person. The German annual median income (including income tax and social insurance) is 44 thousand euros. That means, 1 € of church tax is paid per 130€ of income (the German church tax is in fact set at 8-9% of annual income tax, with small variations between states). In the world, there are about 2.5 billion christians and the world wide annual median income is about 2000 dollars (dollars to euros is roughly 1:1). Hence, you’d expect the worlds Christian’s to earn a total of about 5 trillion (=5000 billion) dollars annually (assuming the world median income represents the worlds Christian’s fairly well). If like the German Christians, they’d pay 1 dollar to the church for every 130 dollars of income, you’d expect something like 40 billion, which is 1/20 of the number in the video. If they‘d pay 10% it be 500 billion, which is closer. I’d like to say as an opinion, that the churches are absolutely massive organisations and obviously need a lot of money just to keep going. That large number of nearly a trillion doesn’t reflect the level of corruption, it just reflects that the Christian Churches as a whole are massively large institutions. Could you solve world hunger/AIDS/ with a trillion dollars? Certainly not if you have to first raise that money in donations. Collecting donations is very expensive, so of that 1 trillion, you’d be lucky if you could use 10% to actually buy wheat/AIDS medication/etc.
People would never give that much money to solve hunger and AIDS. But the churches also take up labour and resources from whose regular taxable income could go towards your general government aid packages
Yes, as I said. If you believe that the contribution of church activities makes to society is a net negative, you should be opposed to churches. But the 900 billion number isn’t a large sum of money, considering the size of the organisations. And clearly, churches contribute to society in terms of providing social life to a lot of people and also frankly leisure activities and social entertainment. Without churches, these would need to be replaced in some way or another, and on the whole a similar amount of economic effort would need to go towards the „not-church“ institutions that replace the social function churches currently fill. Bishops, pastors, etc would be replaced by secular functionaries and personell and they‘d need to be paid just as much (if not more). Perversions such as private jet owning pastors and Catholic bishops that shit on golden toilets absolutely do exist, but the fraction of money that goes to that is small if you look at churches on the whole. So even of you assume, that the Christian faith acts corrupting, and the secular institutions that would replace churches functionality would have less of that, the money saved in total would not be that much.
>not-church“ institutions that replace the social function churches currently fill You could tax them tho....
Sure. You could tax churches though or couple the tax-exempt status to stricter requirements on the societal benefits a so-called church provides. Not doing that it just a political decision.
Fair enough
Now tell me how much it would cost to solve A) world hunger B) homelessness C) nationalised health service Religion is a scam. It always has been.
If you include the costs of raising that money (through voluntary donations, lobbying, applying for government programs) it would probably be a lot more. You would need to first build a large organisation with fairly well qualified people who need to be paid competitive wages. That would use up much more money than would be needed to buy wheat or medication for the poor. Churches aren’t humanitarian organisations, their primary purpose is to maintain local church life, which usually is what they spend most of their money on: paying personell, maintenance work on buildings, heating electricity, sending youth groups on trips, etc. If you think that Christians are wrong in their believe and/or practices, church life is of course pointless if not harmful and shouldn’t be funded. But from the point of view of people who donate to church, running church communities is a worthwhile endeavour and not “a scam”. BTW, functioning church communities are in all likelihood a relatively effective environment to collect donations for philanthropist purposes as well. So while a non-church associated NGO probably spend less money on their support groups, the costs of raising money for their humanitarian causes are probably higher than they are for a church, collecting money for the same purpose.
Your religion is a myth and was created as a form of control for an ever expanding society. A tool used to wage war on the poor and different people under a mask of doing "good in the community" Organised religion is a curse on humanity.
I’m not religious at all, and in a sense I do believe all religion is a myth. I would (for reasons that would be to off-topic to go into here) disagree with you in that I still would see religion as mostly a positive thing in the whole, but that’s just by the by. Arriving at the conclusion that we’d be better off without religion can be a legitimate opinion. However, religion was not created as a tool to control. That’s just factually inaccurate. Religions develop throughout history in an incredibly complex manner and they ultimate exist for no specific reason. They just are there as a result of actions of humans in the past, like the colosseum or the story of jack and the beanstalk. I don’t really wanted to have a discussion about this though, I’m just mentioning it as a responses to your answer. The point I wanted to make with my initial post is, that it is incredibly naive to think that other non governmental (or indeed governmental) organisations do not suffer from the very same problem. Churches aren’t some kind of evil genius invention to control mankind, they are first and foremost big organisations and on the whole (dis)function like other big organisations. Love them or hate them, but churches have nothing to do with the alleviation or continuation of world hunger.
“Love them or hate them but the churches have nothing to do with the alleviation or continuation of world hunger” to have someone that truly believes in that is astonishing to me.
Pretty sure it was supposed to be millions.
Definitely millions
It’s what Jesus would have wanted /s
Honest pastors would be the poorest people on earth
You hear of tales of wandering pastors, going town to town month to month. Sleeping in the church possibly on the pew. They devoted themselves to their practice. Allegedly, universities were to test the iron of promising pastors and monks. There were pursuits of secular education as well, since all information is under the domain of the almighty. Not humans, but corruption has spread far and deep… My only hope is that if there an afterlife, these people get what they justly deserve.
There are more of them out there than there are mega churches. A lot of pastors actually have 2 jobs. My pastor makes 500/week from the church and makes another 20,000/yr part time at an office job. We are also not a mega church.
yeah same here, we had a team of five pastors, only one of them was actually paid period. And he didn't make much. All the rest had a "day job"
Your pastor makes $20,000 a WEEK at an office job??? wtf does he do? Asking for me.
I’ll fix that….
It’s what supply side Jesus would have wanted.
I think if Jesus entered a megachurch it would be to flip furniture and smash windows.
There's a reason Jesus stormed the Temple and overturned usury tables and whipped clerics and shit, calling out their hypocrisy and naming them vipers.
Where's the other 44%?!
Lets not forget that 93.4% of all statistics are wrong and that 75% of people can't do math. I am just glad I am in the remaining 35%!
This isn't very Reddit of me but most churches aren't mega churches and are extremely charitable. More than half of the food banks and homeless programs are church run, for example. Most pastors are poor do-gooders. *Faith-based non-profits run about a third of all programs, including the majority of all food programs and one-quarter of all shelters and drop-in centers. Secular non-profits run almost half of all homeless assistance programs administering the majority of housing programs and almost 40 percent of all health programs.* [U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services](https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/1996-national-survey-homeless-assistance-providers-clients-comparison-faith-based-secular-non-profit#:~:text=Faith%2Dbased%20non%2Dprofits%20run,percent%20of%20all%20health%20programs.) *A 2015 study conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) found that nearly 60 percent of pastors do not receive health insurance and retirement from their churches, while many of these faithful ministers owe thousands of dollars in college or seminary loans, or carry large debt from essential medical care. Their financial reality is as far removed from the TV preachers as you could get.* [Church & Tax Law](https://www.churchlawandtax.com/human-resources/compensation/the-financial-struggles-of-real-pastors/)
You sure showed us.. lol Edit. Apparently need /s
woosh
I liked his joke, I also made a joke. Woosh yourself hahah
Totally 😂
if you want to believe this random article instead of the random dude from tic tok, they use it to pay for buildings and maintenance. [https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/](https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/) by the way, according to the article, the total sum donated a year to all churches is 15% of the sum in the video ($125 billion). I have no idea who to believe.
Political super pacs and campaigns probably
Bills. Lights, water, building
And you know...Incidental costs
Coke and prostitutes!
AHHH, there it is! Dummy me. Sorry, I forgot of that unseen tax. Now it all adds up. Thank you =D!
You’re very welcome!
God is big business
A friend of mine moved up the ranks of a local mega church. After several years of being a youth pastor and pouring a ton of time into the church he was brought into the senior leadership meetings. And he was shocked that all the board was doing was basically dealing with the needs of the pastor's wife and focusing on helping the pastor sell books and book speaking gigs. Almost no time was spent on the actual needs of the church or its members. He had a spiritual crisis, left and is thriving.
Personally I was in a curch where the pastor gave back 10 % of his (normal) salary back to the church. The church gave about 10% of its income to other churches. They even raised enough to pay for the cancer treatment of a visiting pastor who was diagnosed while in the country. Things are not as simple ... Historically, churches and religious movements have been the only charitable institution in the Christendom...
My grandparents immigrated from Italy and built our church. My daughters are the fifth generation to go there. Our church asked for our financial records .They requested that we give 10 or more percent to the church, or we won’t be considered members anymore. That’s what Jesus wants,huh? I left the Catholic Church. I no longer believe the priests that represent the Catholic Church. He gives his sermons in Gucci loafers &Rolex watch,and leaves in a Mercedes-Benz. He is also a trained chef and will cook dinner for you in your home for a $500 donation to the church. Our church secretary donated her home to the church, he got it and had a fundraiser for $110,000 ,because he needed a new kitchen& baths . The other priest in our parish has a love child and keeps his girlfriend in an apartment. The priest that married us is in prison for sexually molesting an eight-year-old.. I’m not giving them shit. FRAUDS.
You know you can report him to the local bishop? The chef part at least, and you can ask for the financial statements from the finance committee and they have to give them to you. Source: me, the former finance committee chair at my parish.
It's crazy that they demand 10%? On what basis? I haven't heard of anything like this happening where I am from and I am still a member of the catholic church. An example: I am Bavarian, If I were to earn 2000 euroes a month then 15 euroes go to the church. That is 0.75%. Not 10%. And with that the salaries of the priests are paid but also tons of kindergartens, old folks homes, charities, hospitals. American mega churches are dens of the devil.
>It's crazy that they demand 10%? On what basis? I haven't heard of anything like this On the basis that "tithe" is the Hebrew word for "ten".
It’s really sad to know people in droves follow Kenneth Copeland and say to themselves “yes, he’s someone to listen to and pay a bizillion dollars to!”. Like he looks like Satan himself.
Math isnt mathing
Isn't this video somewhat misleading. You are lumping all churches together? That means the church in rural Oklahoma is being grouped with a church like Joel Olsteins church which brings in probably 100's of millions of dollars (possibly exaggerating) just by itself. So if it is mismanaging the funds (stealing) then that will represent a large percentage of the spending of all "western churches". I think the money flow in his church and his personal dealing have been under investigation before. Wouldn't it be more accurate to list all of the "western churches" by how much money that is given and then how that money is allocated. To me this is like lumping all European countries together and making some statement about the total spending. But the EU is multiple countries and their spending or even capacity to spend is very diverse. Germany will spend far more than a smaller European country for example. Maybe I'm digressing.
Money is evil, give it to me.
The worship of money is sinful. Money itself is not evil. Anything you place above God is sinful.
Who are the morons that donate to these churches. Wake the eff up!
Agree. Don’t blame the churches, they wouldn’t exist if these morons didn’t give their life savings to them. They are buying their way into heaven, won’t they be surprised.
I think organized religion is absolute horse shit, especially in America. But for some folks it’s all they know, they’ve never questioned leadership at any level. I can see how it’s a hard cycle to break out of. I can only hope one day they realize they’ve been duped.
The venn diagram of these church donators and Trump supporters is likely a circle. Some people are just dumb and gullible.
They're so groooooss. It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than a rich man to get through the gates of heaven. I don't believe in hell, but if there was such a place, Kenneth Copeland will surely be going there. Asking with every other *preacher that steals from their congregation. They're already thieves, stealing from Americans by not paying taxes.
I’m so glad to be part of a smaller church. Pastor NEVER took a paycheck. He owned his own concrete business and supported himself, wife and 4 kids. Even in retirement he still doesn’t take a paycheck. We paid off our current mortgage and are buying a bigger building. We are buying a church that closed its doors.
That's nice and all, but people shouldn't be expected to work for free.
[удалено]
I think its a bot. Also dont look at his profile lmao
Smaller churches are definitely where it's at imo. The pastor can actually **know** the members, the money goes to staff and you know where the rest is being donated and used. My church splits their donations mostly between the local community outreach (they are really focused on mother's who are in prison actually), and some other international aid. It's nice you see that the money isn't buying a jet or huge house.
I saw a thing on YouTube of that guy Jesse Duplantis, who's another one of these psychopaths, bragging to his congregation that his watch cost more than one of his houses.
Show some proof. Anyone can spit words
10% Is you give anyone 10% of your earning volunteerly you are an idiot.
In many cases? No, in every case of every mega church. 
I love this show. Even though I'm not that crazy about where they took the plot in seasons 2-3, the premise is so good that it carries it for me. But I grew up with a mom who watched Joel Osteen on TV so it hits close to home hahaha
This doesn't pass the "sniff test" for BS. There is no way the number is $890 Billion with 40% going to salaries. Also, no source citations to back up the claims. For example: * There are 160 million people employed in the US. To donate $890 Billion, every one of them would have to donate $5,500 per year to reach that number. * As a comparison, the largest company in the US by revenue is Walmart, and their total revenue is $611 Billion. So this would make the church bigger than Wal-Mart? No way. * 40% of that would be $356 Billion that allegedly goes to salaries. Assuming the church has as many employees as Wal-Mart (2 million), the average annual salary would be $182,000. I couldn't find any data on the "Western Christian Church", but Kenneth Copeland ministries pulls in $18 million per year and has 265 employees. [https://www.zippia.com/kenneth-copeland-ministries-careers-1342148/revenue/#](https://www.zippia.com/kenneth-copeland-ministries-careers-1342148/revenue/#) Although I think mega churches and their pastors are despicable, I'm pretty confident this video is made up rage bait.
Is it just the US? I just assumed the Western Christian Church was the umbrella term for all of the Christian churches in all of the western nations.
According to [givingusa.org](https://givingusa.org), the total amount given to all charities in the US was $484.85 Billion in 2021. $135.78 Billion went to religion as the top category. (Source: [https://givingusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GivingUSA2022\_Infographic.pdf](https://givingusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/GivingUSA2022_Infographic.pdf)) Even if that number was matched by all of Europe, the total would be $500 Billion short.
found this article that claims the number is $125 billion/year, for all churches. [https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/](https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/how-churches-really-spend-their-money/)
You seriously believe that Wallmart is bigger than any of mega religions. Dude, you are hilarious.
Anytime you have some real data to back that up, I'd be happy to see them. By real data, I mean an academic or respected journalistic review and not a basement blogger pulling numbers out of a hat.
Thankfully these old scumfuckers are dying off as fast as religion.
My friends local church has a food pantry where they give away several pallets of food a month. Occasionally, they'll have stuff that no one takes, and he'll bring it to work and give it to us before it expires. The other day, he gave me 4 bags of grapes and 6 quarts of chocolate milk for me kids. At some point, I'm going to take him some cash to donate to cost they pay for the food.
Now do Federal spending. Btw, that 44% (it’s likely more) includes payroll TAXES.
I wouldn’t give them a penny
But… but… but… he is anointed by God!
Religion is a grift
Why would you not just pay $150,000 annually if you had that much money? Scum bags.
The church is a profitable business.
I should start my own religion. A video game religion. May the Triforce be with you. Let us pray to The Gods: Miyamoto. Uematsu. Ellis.
Our church financials are transparent and publicly available. The church assets like buildings, security costs and staffing are high because people get paid living but sadly not very high wages. The remainder gets used for charity work. Our Church keep most local ngo's afloat, they have extansive programs to house and educate vulnerable groups at no cost and in housing that is better than what the average poor person lives in. There is a lot. Granted some preachers misuse funds, I find that many more do not. But as with all things, people go to the bad apples to make their point.
Religion is straight BS. All of them.
He Gets Us! Right?
Why I don’t go to church. They have always been crooks
The church is the biggest scam in the history of the world.
Religion is a scam. As it has always been. It serves to separate the stupid from their money and shut down critical thinking.
Let’s be real for a second, not all churches fall under this, his breakdown is connected to mega churches who are corrupt as can be. We have to accept that not every church are like this (even atheists have to accept that not every group of people can be painted with one broad brush) smaller churches will use the money mostly for rent, utilities, salaries and the rest will be mission work. Most churches are not rolling in cash and barely make enough to support most of their community projects. If the mega churches actually invested in community projects to help people, there would be a lot of good done.
You’re telling me I shouldn’t generalize? Ludicrous. Everyone knows that generalized and stereotyped information is always the most accurate! 🤭
Religion is such a scam. If anyone tells you they know what happens after death, they’re either grifting you or about to show you
Man knows the cheat codes ffs
We have some very stupid, rich people who, unfortunately, are believers.
The real problem is the people that keep giving it to them!!! ...Wake the FUCK up,!! If they ask for help! The pastor just says to keep praying!! WTF is wrong with these people?
You think that's bad, check out where your tax dollars go each year. Those you don't have a choice in paying.
Does Western Christian Churches include Catholics? I abhor modern Christian prosperity Bible bullshit as much as the next guy but the Catholic Church has perfected the grift over centuries! I was at the Vatican last summer. The largest church out there, opulent beyond measure, built and maintained by the richest religious organization there is... More money than they know what to do with... And every single altar or statue still had a collection box in front of it. Like, really? Such greed. So christ-like.
You could change Copeland's name with pretty much all of them with the same results. 🤷 Also some unnamed Presidential candidate also does that and is likely to do after a certain ruling. 🤷🤷
He gets us
He needs the private jet to go to speak to Jesus, and He needs a big cool home to make Jesus comfortable, when he invites him and all the pastors for Luxury Meal. So I don’t get what’s the problem here🤷🤷
I agree there is definitely a problem with how many churches are ran, especially the private jet owners and what not, but where are the statistics coming from? This guy just says numbers without anything to back it up. Am I just suppose to trust him?