CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/29/2021(Book Launch. Kenneth Copeland, Prosperity Gospel, Creflo Dollar, David Oyedepo, Joel Osteen, NXIVM, Legal, ICSA Event)

Book Launch. Kenneth Copeland, Prosperity Gospel, Creflo Dollar, David Oyedepo, Joel Osteen, NXIVM, Legal, ICSA Event

Book Launch and Q & A, Maria D. Peregolise, with Special Guest Ron Burks, PhD

Description - Book Launch Q & A: Culted Child: The True Story of a Daughter Disciple, Maria D. Peregolise. "Culted Child" and its website,  presents a true story & research on cults, spiritual abuse, narcissistic behavior, memory loss, etc. with links, books, & articles from qualified sources: Ph.D., LMFC, Psychology Today, F.B.I., ICSA, etc. 

Time: Jul 31, 2021 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3678063940
Meeting ID: 367 806 3940

The Citizen: A peek at the system churning out super-rich pastors

"These are by no means incon

spicuous, as they are often seen donning flashy attires, living in luxurious mansions, and driving expensive cars. They are usually flanked by half a dozen or more security men with dark glasses, and some even own multiple private jets. They are important people, and they want you to know it.

The world has a new breed of preachers – the superrich pastors.

These are by no means inconspicuous, as they are often seen donning flashy attires, living in luxurious mansions, and driving expensive cars. They are usually flanked by half a dozen or more security men with dark glasses, and some even own multiple private jets. They are important people, and they want you to know it.

The richest of them is Kenneth Copeland. Living in a $20 million mansion, and owning a $36 million jet, Copeland is the poster boy for superrich preachers. In fact, with an estimated net worth of at least $300 million, no one else comes close. While names such as Creflo Dollar, TD Jakes, TB Joshua, Joel Osteen, and Benny Hinn are more recognizable, those in the know understand who the true prosperity gospel patriarchs are, and Copeland ranks very highly.

The second name in the list of who is who among the superrich pastors is possibly the most interesting one, and that is the Nigerian megachurch pastor, Dr David Oyedepo. A university lecturer-turned-preacher, Dr Oyedepo presides over a ministry with branches in 65 countries. He is a founder and president of Covenant University, Landmark University, Faith Academy, and over 150 secondary schools, and presides over one of the largest churches in the world, with an auditorium that can sit at least 50,000 people. He has a net worth of $150 million.

It is difficult for those beyond Pentecostal circles to understand how powerful these preachers are. In a world full of misery and pain, these preachers offer a remarkably appealing alternative, so it's no wonder that many respond to their message. However, at some point we must ask, how does a person who calls himself a full-time minister amass that kind of wealth?"

Albany Times Union: Ex-NXIVM president Salzman: I didn't protect daughter from 'likely' psychopath Raniere

"Nancy Salzman, former NXIVM president and the one-time ally of Keith Raniere, now calls Raniere "likely a psychopath" and says she did not protect her daughter, Lauren Salzman, from him.

NEW YORK – In a letter to a federal judge seeking leniency for her daughter, former NXIVM president Nancy Salzman said she failed to shield Lauren Salzman from Keith Raniere — a man she now describes as a "sexual predator, a narcissist and likely a psychopath."

Nancy Salzman, who co-founded the cult-like personal growth organization in Colonie with Raniere in 1998, told Senior U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis to "please consider how young Lauren was when she met Keith and my personal failure as a mother to protect her and guide her."

Lauren Salzman, whose crimes include her role in Raniere's confinement of a Mexican woman to a room in her parent's townhouse for nearly two years simply because the woman kissed another man, pleaded guilty in 2019 to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy."

International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): 2021 Conference is Still Available

The 2021 online annual conference was a great success, with more than 425 attendees!! If you missed it, no problem, because for the FIRST TIME EVER -- you have the opportunity to watch 65 conference session recordings until August 15, 2021!

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Why electing Donald Trump was a triumph for the prosperity gospel

The Washington Post
Michael Schulson
November 30, 2016

The election of Donald Trump has lifted fringe ideologies, such as the alt-right, and little-known political figures, such as Trump’s immigration adviser Kris Kobach, to new levels of national prominence.

It has also elevated a group of evangelical Christian leaders and traditions that are often treated as marginal. Specifically, Trump’s victory has been an unlikely triumph for the prosperity gospel, as well as for a handful of prosperity-oriented preachers from the world of African American televangelism.

The president-elect identifies as a Presbyterian. But his rhetoric during the campaign often reflected the language of the prosperity gospel, a diffuse American Christian movement that links faith, positive thinking and material wealth into “the American religion of winning,” as journalist Jeff Sharlet described it this year.

More than once, Trump has cited the influence of minister Norman Vincent Peale, whose concept of positive thinking is a close relative of the prosperity gospel. And like prosperity gospel preachers, Trump made the appeal of his personal fortune central to his pitch.

The prosperity gospel is often associated with ostentatious fundraisers such as Oral Roberts, Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar, the Atlanta megachurch pastor who tried to raise $65 million in 2015 to buy a private plane.

These nondenominational pastors rarely become involved in politics, and they do not wield the same institutional power as the more conventional leaders of major evangelical denominations. Perhaps because it has no single denominational structure, no clear leadership, and a stronger presence among less-educated Americans and people of color, the prosperity movement has often been treated as marginal.

Bradley Koch, a sociologist at Georgia College who has studied the demographics of prosperity gospel traditions, explained that “there is a dearth of data” about the movement, in part because of scholars “historically just not taking the prosperity movement seriously.”

Still, the movement’s influence is significant. Surveys can be unreliable tools for gauging religious beliefs, but, according to Koch, about 5 percent of Americans seem to identify explicitly with the prosperity movement. Far more Americans, though — perhaps close to two-thirds — identify with at least some prosperity gospel teachings, such as the idea that God wants people to succeed financially.

“They might not identify with the prosperity gospel, in the same way people don’t identify as Presbyterian, but they may identify with ideas that are central to these teachings,” Koch said.

“There’s something in the air in American religion that has valorized business success, that has valorized wealth, and that has valorized quote-unquote language of vigor,” said Jonathan Walton, a professor and minister at Harvard and the author of a book about black televangelists and the prosperity gospel. That valorization is there “at the highest levels,” he said. “Not just Pentecostals, not just folks of color. I’m talking about mainstream Presbyterians, Methodists.”

Walton said he was not surprised that more than four-fifths of white evangelicals voted for Trump, a twice-divorced candidate who boasted about committing sexual assault. “I think the same mistake that political theorists and political pollsters made in relationship to Donald Trump’s rise and success is the same mistake scholars of religion have made as it relates to the role of the prosperity gospel in American society,” Walton said. “They underestimated just how much at the center it is, versus it being something that’s marginalized or marginal.”

Trump’s affinity for the language and style of the prosperity gospel is part of a larger end run around traditional evangelical authorities, many of whom see the prosperity gospel as a kind of heresy, and many of whom were hesitant to embrace Trump’s candidacy.

Nowhere is that end run more stark than in Trump’s informal spiritual Cabinet — a small group of pastors who helped him burnish his moral bona fides early in the campaign. The three most central of those pastors — Paula White, Mark Burns and Darrell Scott — all came from the prosperity gospel-infused world of black televangelism. Each spoke at the Republican National Convention, and Burns, in particular, was a high-profile, and often controversial, Trump surrogate during the campaign.

Scott oversees a church and radio ministry in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Burns runs a Christian TV network out of a tiny studio in Easley, S.C. And White, a popular TV preacher, is the pastor of a megachurch in an Orlando suburb.

White is not black, but she got her start under the tutelage of the black megachurch icon T.D. Jakes, had a breakout gig on BET, and continues to preach to largely African American crowds. She and Trump became friends after he saw her on television (“He is a fan of Christian television,” Burns said).

White introduced Scott to Trump in 2011, when Trump asked her to organize a meeting with pastors when he was considering a presidential run. Scott and Trump’s counsel, Michael Cohen, became friends, and they organized a high-profile meeting between Trump and black pastors during the primaries last fall. They also introduced Burns, the South Carolina pastor, to Trump.

In interviews, Scott and Cohen insisted that Trump’s campaign had successfully reached African American voters (he won 8 percent of the African American vote), and Cohen said that, of the 100 black pastors invited to meet with Trump last year, 98 had filled out endorsement cards. Asked for a list of those 98, he refused, berated a reporter for wasting his time with frivolous requests, and then said that a list might be on the website of Trump’s National Diversity Coalition (it is not; in an interview with the National Review, Darrell Scott estimated that only 35 to 50 of the pastors filled out endorsement cards).

Asked what members of his church think of his association with Trump, Scott said that “you always have those who take umbrage to it, who listen to CNN more than they listen to me.”

Rather than win over black Christian voters, Scott and Burns seem more likely to have helped assure white Christians that Trump is neither impious nor a racist, despite his history of racist comments.

In return, they — along with White — have received a national platform. Burns spoke gratefully about how the campaign had raised his profile. Trump “did not have to allow this black preacher from a small town in South Carolina to have those things, he did not have to do that,” he said before recalling, warmly, the day Trump had asked him to speak at the Republican convention.

“I’m not sure if I’ll be doing anything for the inauguration,” he said. “I’m praying that I will.”

Michael Schulson is a freelance journalist and an associate editor at Religion Dispatches, where he co-produces a section on science, religion, technology and ethics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/11/30/why-electing-a-billionaire-was-especially-a-triumph-for-the-prosperity-gospel/?utm_term=.bb3e47c3c23c&utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=7ceb408c28-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-7ceb408c28-400018169

You're not welcome, Free Church tells American pastor Creflo Dollar

Creflo Dollar

APRIL 9, 2016
The National
ANDREW LEARMONTH

CONTROVERSIAL American pastor Creflo Dollar, who last year asked his followers to stump up $65 million for a new private jet, has been told he is not welcome in Glasgow, by the Free Church of Scotland.

The televangelist is set to appear at the SECC in June in a meeting organised by the Destiny Evangelical church.

Dollar is a proponent of the Prosperity Gospel that says being rich is God’s will and that a regular donation to the church can help a believer become more wealthy.

But yesterday, the Rev David Robertson, Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland said Dollar’s work was blasphemous and embarrassing, and told him to go elsewhere.

Robertson said: “Creflo Dollar coming here is appalling. He’s a multimillionaire, American, televangelist and we really do not need him here. The church doesn’t need him. It’s embarrassing to have somebody like that come. His prosperity gospel is blasphemous. It’s not what people in Scotland need to hear.

“He’s not welcome. Not with that message. It’s a horrendous message that he brings. It’s not the message of the gospel at all. He can keep his jet and use it to fly elsewhere.”

Dollar is senior pastor at his own World Changers Church International, and has an estimated net worth of $27 million. The New York Times reported that he has mansion in Atlanta, a penthouse in New York, several cars, including a Rolls Royce.

When he was asked about the Rolls Royce is a rare media interview he replied: “It was a gift that my local church gave to me, you don’t turn down a gift that somebody gives to you”.

Last year Dollar appealed to his parishioners to each donate $300 towards the cost of a new G650 Gulfstream private jet, insisting it was necessary.

Chief executive of Humanist Society Scotland Gordon MacRae said: “Scotland is proudly a place where people are able to express their views, no matter how ridiculous people find then.

“This news is coming in the same week as the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey confirmed that a majority of people in Scotland are not religious.

“We trust that Destiny Church would not expose any of their vulnerable members to be to exploited by his voracious appetite for money. We don’t want Scotland to become the latest layover stop for wealthy televangelists seeking to rip people off.”

http://www.thenational.scot/news/youre-not-welcome-free-church-tells-american-pastor-creflo-dollar.16137

Moneybags Pastor Creflo Dollar Might Get His Very Own Highway

Goldie Taylor
The Daily Beast
January 29, 2016

Creflo Dollar

Controversial megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar may soon have a namesake highway to coast down in his two Rolls-Royces.

It isn't exactly a street paved with gold and, alas, it doesn't include any pearly gates, but controversial mega-church pastor Creflo Dollar might be getting his own highway.

A Georgia state senator filed a resolution to rename a portion of Old National Highway in Dollar's honor.

"It is abundantly fitting and proper that this enduring example of God's message be recognized by dedicating a road in his honor," state Sen. Donzella James (D-Atlanta), who appears to have nothing better to do, wrote in her proposed legislation. Last year, James successfully lobbied the legislature to change the name of a section of Spring Street to Gladys Knight Highway.

At least one Atlanta blogger is calling foul.

"There are many, many God-fearing Christians of every denomination who believe [Dollar's] message is sinful at best, exploitative at worst, and want as much distance between their government and this man as possible," wrote George Chidi forGeorgiaPol.com.

World Changers Church International, where Dollar is the founding senior pastor, sits in James's south Fulton County district just outside of Atlanta. Its 8,500-seat World Dome is purportedly home to around 30,000 members, many of whom are pressed to "tithe" 10 percent of their gross earnings to support the ministry. At one point, in 2006, the praying enterprise took in nearly $70 million in cash collections.

While Dollar—who is often derisively called "Rev. Cash-Flow"—has never disclosed his income, he has been widely criticized for enriching himself on the backs of his working-poor and middle-class congregation. The sanctuary, built for $18 million without bank financing, stands in a predominantly black, economically depressed neighborhood. Meanwhile, Dollar owns two Rolls-Royces and flies around the world in a private jet. He made headlines last year when the church attempted to raise $65 million for a brand new luxury Gulfstream.

Dollar "renounced" his church salary in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press and said he relies on personal investments, including income from book sales. A U.S. Senate committee investigated Dollar, along with Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Baptist Church and four other faith leaders, but ultimately found no wrongdoing.

"Some people hear the name Creflo Dollar, and immediately sing his praises," Andre Walker blogged at Georgia Unfiltered.

"Others hear the name Creflo Dollar, and think he's a two-bit shyster who uses the Bible and poor religious people to support his lavish lifestyle through the so-called prosperity gospel."

Dollar, who faced allegations that he punched and choked his daughter in June 2012, hasn't said a word about James's proposal. According to police reports, the pastor "slapped" his 15-year-old daughter in the face and "choked her for about five seconds." Another of Dollar's daughters, who was 19 at the time, allegedly witnessed the attack. In the heat of the accusations, the preacher denied that the altercation unfolded as his daughters reported and issued a public statement, saying he would never hurt them. His supporters pointed to a father's "duty" to discipline his children.

The Daily Beast reached out to church spokesman Vic Bolton, who is Dollar's brother-in-law, for comment, but he did not respond.

Curiously, the senator's latest street-naming gambit has four co-sponsors—Michael 'Doc' Rhett, Gail Davenport, Harold Jones, and Valencia Seay— all of whom are Democrats hailing from various parts of the state.

Since the GOP took over both houses of the state legislature nearly 20 years ago, Democrats have been remanded to the largely ceremonious role of voting against legislation that was almost sure to pass. Others, like State Sen. Vincent Fort, have turned the well of the Senate into a pulpit for social justice.

There is no word that Sen. James has received anything in exchange for her street-renaming adventures. But maybe this will get her a first-class ticket on the highway to heaven—or maybe one moving in the other direction.

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/29/moneybags-pastor-creflo-dollar-might-get-his-very-own-highway.html

Creflo Dollar Shuts Down Campaign for $65 Million Jet; Will Now Focus on 'Spreading the Gospel'

The Christian Post
Leonardo Blair
March 16, 2015

After a bruising weekend handling ferocious backlash over his campaign to acquire a $65 million Gulfstream G650 airplane with planned donations of $300 or more from 200,000 people, controversial televangelist and founder of World Changers Church International, Creflo Dollar has completely abandoned the idea and will only consider acquiring one in the future if it's "properly priced."

"There is no campaign right now," said Juda Engelmayer of 5W Public Relations, who represents Creflo Dollar Ministries, in an interview with The Christian Post on Monday. The website hosting the campaign page was deactivated last week and an option to donate to the G650 campaign through the Creflo Dollar Ministries website was removed Monday afternoon.

Dollar, who has an international ministry, was banking on raising enough money to buy the luxury jet to replace one owned by his ministry that was significantly damaged in an accident last November.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, Dollar's "Gulfstream Aerospace G-1159A airplane, N103CD, had a nose landing gear collapse during a runway excursion at the London Biggin Hill Airport (EGKB), near London, United Kingdom," on Nov. 24, 2014, and "the airplane sustained substantial airframe damage."

Since then, Dollar and his staff have been travelling "commercial," an option critics believe he should have simply continued to exercise instead of asking the public for money to purchase the luxury jet. It appears Dollar has somewhat taken that suggestion to heart.

"He's gonna continue traveling commercial. And if and when he obtains another jet it's gonna be used for ministry purposes, just like the current one," said Engelmayer.

When asked if acquiring a jet is still something on the televangelist's radar, Engelmayer said: "If one comes along that is properly priced and is sufficient and workable perhaps, but right now there is nothing that they are looking at."

Asked what the ministry considered a "properly priced" jet, he replied, "I don't know."

Engelmayer further explained that the now broken ministry plane has flown some 4 million miles in 16 years. Most of the trips made in the airplane were national flights. When it was used for international trips, he said, they transported hundreds of thousands of pounds of food and other supplies cumulatively. He was unable, however, to say how much cargo they transported on an annual basis.

"They load the plane up with what it can handle," he said.

Although not saying it in so many words, he acknowledged that the G650 campaign was a bad idea and they are now trying to move on.

"There is no campaign. It's a moot point. The ministry will now focus on spreading the Gospel," he said.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/creflo-dollar-shuts-down-campaign-for-65-million-jet-will-now-focus-on-spreading-the-gospel-135762/