Posted on 04/02/2007 10:54:32 AM PDT by blackbeardsghost
"I'm so angry now I can't control my car when I'm on the road. I was so angry a couple of years ago I almost drove my car off the road. I was suicidal, and I'm figuring this is getting to the point now where I cannot manage myself because I'm working so hard and the prosperity hasn't come in that these pastors said, 'Oh, you're going to outgive God, and God is going to give back to you.'"
When the promised divine intervention didn't materialize, she turned back to the church.
But when she called Thomas in March 2001, three months after her final donation of $520,000, he said he told
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
This is what gives the Church a bad name. It's disgraceful.
That's your justification? It's her fault because she wanted to bribe God? And then, she asks the church for help with her medical bill and they turn her down? WOW is all I have to say.
Lots of church hit pieces surfacing as we enter Holy Week.
Yes, refusing to help her with medical bills was cold as ice. Cruel and detached.
I'm also wondering how her trustee from Wachovia allowed Bennett to just write checks. Maybe it's how the trust was established, but usually it is the trustee, not the beneficiary who makes distributions.
Not exactly a church hit piece. These maga churches are just businesses for the most part. Just hard logistically to keep those big places running I guess. And it's hard to have that kind of money floating around tempting weak people. A lot to be said for small groups.
Anything else is considered a freewill offering and though she may claimed to be 'influenced', the pastor did not hold her down and forcibly take anything.
As for the 'mental state' claim that smells of a bogus smokescreen that has been used before since no one (human that is) can read your thoughts, intentions or present mental state.
It's a very strange and cautionary tale.
whoops- "mega" churches- ha
This is exactly why the buggy whip industry should still be making buggy whips, and change the name to butt whips.
prophetic...so you're saying that the CHURCH..knowing this was all her money, had NO RESPONSIBILITY whatsoever in this? That they are under no ethical obligation to make sure that this "gift" was given with a sane mind? Again, this is what gives the Church a bad name...and in this case, deservedly so.
Oh no, I agree. The mental state defense sounds a little weak to me. She mentioned getting mad in her car-- if she was really crazy she wouldn't have a license to drive.
Too bad she gave it all away, and that particular church might be a little scummy, but they didn't force her it seems. I've heard the "you can't outgive God" line before, even from good pastors, so I dunno, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
That Pastor should not have taken that kind of money from one person of any kind of means. That's a serious amount of money and with it comes serious responsibility - The Pastor should know this.
She was involuntarily committed in 1999, and people connected to the church raised concerns about her mental health. The pastor is denying having any knowledge of this, even though the person who reports directly to him was told about these concerns. In other words, she was mentally ill before she even joined the church, not the other way around once they bilked her.
How true.
Lot of churchs deserve the hits they get....
Sorry, but you know you are dealing with a mentally unstable woman, and do this sort of thing... your eternal soul sure isn't going to see paradise.
When the offering plate holds more value than the pulpit, its not hard to figure out which master the curch is serving.
Poor thing needed some financial counseling as well...
ok to give tithes/offerings but in a balance...
mega churches are so wrapped up in building program funds...
a pastor of a church I once attended promised that after we raised 2 million for a building fund that the next million would be raised for missions... it didn't happen...
I prefer smaller, less flashy churches with no huge building fund marathons.
You are assuming this Pastor had any concern for the people of his flock to begin with....
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