Christian evangelist scandals

A series of scandals resulted in the harming of the reputations of several famous American Christian evangelists, most notably during the 1980s. This list only includes high-profile people from within American protestant non-mainline churches. Roman Catholic clergy and high-profile leaders from New Religious Movements, are not included in this article.

List of Christian Evangelists

Aimee Semple McPherson, 1920s-40s

Main article: Aimee Semple McPherson
Prior to recent events, the most famous evangelist scandal involved Canadian-born Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s, who allegedly had an extramarital relationship and faked her own death as a cover. She later claimed that she had been kidnapped, but a grand jury could neither prove that a kidnapping occurred, nor if she had faked it. Roberta Semple Salter, her daughter from her first marriage, became estranged from Semple McPherson and successfully sued her mother's attorney for slander during the 1930s. As a result of this she was cut out of her mother's will. Aimee Semple McPherson died in 1944 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates.

Lonnie Frisbee, 1970s - 1980s

Main article: Lonnie Frisbee
Lonnie Frisbee was an American closeted gay hippie Pentecostal evangelist and self-described "seeing prophet" and mystic in the late 1960s and 1970s who despite his "hippie" appearance had notable success as a minister and evangelist. Frisbee was a key figure in the Jesus Movement and was responsible for the rise of two worldwide denominations (Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Movement). Both churches later disowned him because of his active homosexuality removing him first from leadership positions then, ultimately, firing him. He eventually died from AIDS in 1993.

Oral Roberts, 1977 and 1986

Main article: Oral Roberts
In 1977 Roberts claimed to have a vision from a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told him to build City of Faith Medical and Research Center and the hospital would be a success. In 1980, Roberts said he had a vision which encouraged him to continue the construction of his City of Faith Medical and Research Center, which opened in 1981. At the time, it was among the largest health facilities of its kind in the world and sought to merge prayer and medicine in the healing process. The City of Faith was in operation for only eight years before closing in late 1989. In 1983 Roberts said Jesus had appeared to him in person and commissioned him to find a cure for cancer.

See also: MC 900 Ft. Jesus

In 1986, during a fund raising drive, televangelist Oral Roberts announced to his television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would "call him home" (a euphemism for death). Some of his listeners feared that he was referring to [...], given the passionate pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. (He raised $9.1 million. Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through his ministry.)

Jim & Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, 1986 and 1991

Main articles: Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker.
In 1986, evangelist Jimmy Swaggart began on-screen attacks against fellow TV ministers Marvin Gorman and Jim Bakker. He uncovered Gorman's affair with a member of his (Gorman's) congregation, and also helped expose Bakker's infidelity (which was arranged by a colleague while on an out-of-state trip). These exposures received large media coverage. Soon, Gorman hired a private investigator to uncover Jimmy's own adulterous indiscretions with a prostitute. This garnered even more media attention as Jimmy, tears flowing profusely through his eyes, then talked with "his Lord" in front of his congregation and TV audience, saying, "I have sinned against you, my Lord, and I would ask that your precious blood would wash and cleanse every stain until it is in the seas of God's forgiveness." Swaggart was caught again by California police five years later, on October 11, 1991, in the company of another prostitute, Rosemary Garcia, who was riding with him in his car when he was stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road. When the patrolman asked Garcia why she was with Swaggart, she replied, "He asked me for [...]. I mean, that's why he stopped me. That's what I do. I'm a prostitute."

Peter Popoff, 1987

Main article: Peter Popoff
A self-proclaimed prophet and faith healer in the 1980s, Popoff's ministry went bankrupt in 1987 after James Randi and Steve Shaw debunked his methods by showing that instead of receiving information about audience members from supernatural sources, he received it through an in-ear receiver.

Mike Warnke, 1991

Main article: Mike Warnke
Warnke was a popular Christian evangelist and comedian during the 1970s and 1980s. He claimed in his autobiography, The Satan Seller (1973), that he had once been deeply involved in satanic cult and was a satanic priest before converting to Christ. In 1991, Cornerstone magazine launched an investigation into Warnke's life and testimony. They investigated Warnke's life, from interviews with over 100 personal friends and acquaintances, to his ministry's tax receipts. Their investigation turned up damaging evidence of fraud and deceit. The investigation also revealed the unflattering circumstances surrounding Warnke's multiple marriages, affairs, and divorces. Most critically, however, the investigation showed how Warnke could not possibly have done The Many things he claimed to have done throughout his nine-month tenure as a Satanist, much less become a [...]-addicted dealer or become a Satanic high priest.

Robert Tilton, 1991

Main article: Robert Tilton
Tilton is an American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the 1980s and early 1990s through his paid television program Success-N-Life. At its peak it aired in all 235 American TV markets. In 1991, Diane Sawyer and ABC News conducted an investigation of Tilton. The investigation, broadcast on ABC's Primetime Live on 21 November, 1991, found that Tilton's ministry threw away prayer requests without reading them, keeping only any money or valuables sent to them by viewers, garnering his ministry an estimated US$80 million a year. In the original investigation, one of Tilton's former prayer hotline operators claimed that the ministry cared little for desperate followers who called for prayer, saying that Tilton had a computer installed in July 1989 to make sure the phone operators were off the line by seven minutes.

Frank Houston, 2000

Main article: Frank Houston
Frank Houston was a Pentecostal Christian pastor in the Assemblies of God in New Zealand and Australia. In 2000 he was advised to resign his ministerial credentials by his own son, Brian Houston, the National President of the Assemblies of God in Australia (and pastor of Hillsong Church), after Houston Sr. confessed that he had engaged in paedophile [...] activities with a teenage boy while ministering in New Zealand some thirty years earlier.

John Paulk, 2000

Main article: John Paulk
John Paulk is a former leader of Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference and former chairman of the board for Exodus International North America. His claimed shedding of homosexuality is also the subject of his autobiography Not Afraid to Change'. In September 2000, Paulk was found and photographed in a Washington, D.C., gay bar, and accused by opponents of flirting with male patrons at the bar. Later questioned by Wayne Besen Paulk denied being in the bar despite photographic proof to the contrary. Initially, FoF’s Dr. James Dobson sided with Paulk and supported his claims. Subsequently, Paulk, who himself had written about his habit of lying while he openly lived as a homosexual, confessed to being in the bar, but claimed he entered the establishment for reasons other than [...] pursuits. Paulk retained his Board seat for Exodus, however he did so while on probation. Paulk did not run again for chairman of the board of Exodus when his term expired.

John Paulk and Earl Paulk (below) are not related.

Douglas Goodman, 2004

Main article: Douglas Goodman
Douglas Goodman is an evangelical preacher who with his wife Erica were Pastors of Victory Christian Centre in London. He came into notoriety when he was jailed for three and a half years for the [...] assault of 4 members of his congregation in 2004. VCC was closed by the Charity Commission but his wife Erica started a new church Victory to Victory in Wembley. The church was one of the largest in the United Kingdom.

Kent Hovind, 2006

Main Article: Kent Hovind
Kent Hovind is an American Young Earth creationist. He is most famous for creation science seminars, which aim to convince listeners to believe in biblical creation and to reject evolution. In 2006, Hovind had been charged with falsely declaring bankruptcy, making threats against federal officials, filing false complaints, failing to get necessary building permits, and various tax-related charges. He was convicted of federal tax and related charges, for which he is currently serving a 10-year sentence.

Ted Haggard, 2006

Main Article: Ted Haggard
Ted Haggard was the Pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006. Haggard's position allowed him occasional access to George W. Bush. In 2006 it was alleged that Haggard had been regularly visiting a male prostitute who also provided him with crystal [...]. Haggard admitted his wrongdoing and resigned as pastor of New Life church and as president of the NAE. The high-profile case was significant also because it immediately preceded the 2006 mid-term elections and may have even affected national voting patterns.

Paul Barnes, 2006

Main Article: Paul Barnes
Paul Barnes is the founder and former senior minister of the evangelical church Grace Chapel in Douglas County, Colorado. He confessed to homosexual activity to the church board, and his resignation was accepted on 7 December 2006. He started the church in his basement and watched it reach a membership of 2,100 in his 28 years of leadership. This scandal was notable because it was similar to Ted Haggard's (above), it occurred in the same state (Colorado) and around the same time (late 2006).

Richard Roberts, 2007

Main article: Richard Roberts
In October 2007, televangelist Richard Roberts (son of Oral Roberts, above), who used to be the president of Oral Roberts University until his forced resignation on November 23, 2007, was named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes and improper use of university resources. Roberts wrote a book titled He's the God of a Second Chance. No second chance has been offered to Roberts as yet.

Bishop Thomas Wesley Weeks and Juanita Bynum, 2007

Main article: Juanita Bynum
On July 22, 2002, Bynum wed Bishop Thomas Wesley Weeks III, her second husband, in a private ceremony. Both Bynum and Weeks had televised ministries. Trinity Broadcasting Network televised their wedding ceremony. Bynum and Weeks III separated in June 2007. Two months later, Weeks III assaulted Bynum in a parking lot of a hotel in Atlanta. He turned himself in, and was charged for assault.

Bishop Earl Paulk, 2007

Main Article: Earl Paulk
Earl Paulk was the founder and head Pastor of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Decatur, Georgia from 1960 until the 1990s. A number of women from the congregation have came forward during the 1990s claiming that Paulk had [...] relations with them. Some of these have subsequently been proven correct. Moreover, Donnie Earl Paulk, the current senior pastor of the church and nephew of Earl Paulk, had a court-ordered DNA test in 2007 which showed that he was Earl's son, not his nephew, which means that Earl and his sister-in-law had had a [...] relationship which led to Donnie's birth.

Earl Paulk and John Paulk (above) are not related.

Impact

Despite their respective scandals and temporarily diminished viewership, televangelism has resurged, such as in the case of the scandalized PTL Club company that was taken over by Jerry Falwell and brought into a state of financial responsibility.

In contrast to the evangelists involved in scandals has been the ministry of Billy Graham, who has received some recognition for remaining free of scandals involving money or [...].

In popular culture

Elmer Gantry is a 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis. It tells the story of a young, obnoxious, womanizing college athlete who, upon realizing the power, prestige, and easy money that being a preacher can bring, pursues his "religious" ambitions with relish, contributing to the downfall, even death, of key people around him as the years pass. Although he continues to womanize, is often exposed as a fraud, and frequently faces a complete downfall, Gantry is never fully discredited and always manages to emerge triumphant and to reach ever greater heights of social status. The novel ends as the Rev. Gantry prays for the USA to be a "moral nation" and simultaneously admires the legs of a new choir singer.

The 1960 film of the same name starred Burt Lancaster as Gantry and Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon Falconer.

The 1997 film The Apostle, directed by and starring Robert Duvall, follows the spiritual exploits and [...] sins of a charismatic Texas preacher.