‘God’s debt cancellation’ donations help evangelist strike it rich
Published: May 25, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
In a detailed investigation of South Carolina’s Inspiration Network, the Charlotte Observer reports that the network’s on-air promises that viewers can obtain prosperity and “God’s debt cancellation” by donating $200 or more have made its CEO David Cerullo a wealthy man and his cable network “one of the world’s fastest growing Christian broadcasters.”
With a salary that in 2007 amounted to $1.52 million, Cerulla is “the best-paid leader of any religious charity” and earns far more than CEOs of larger non-profits, such as Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. An additional $600,000 was paid in 2007 to his wife and children.
Last year, Cerullo’s network had a budget of nearly $80 million, half derived from donations, much of which is going into building the “City of Light” in northern Lancaster County, SC. According to the Observer, “Taxpayers are also helping to pay for it. Eager to bring jobs to a county with 19 percent unemployment, South Carolina offered the network incentives worth up to $26 million to land the campus — a deal that has been questioned by economic development experts.”
Wall Watchers, a watchdog group which monitors religious charities, has called Cerullo’s salary “outrageous” and issued “a ‘donor alert’ to caution people against giving to the Inspiration Networks.” The Observer notes that “IRS rules prohibit nonprofits from paying ‘unreasonable compensation’ to officials. But the agency examines the returns of fewer than 8,000 of the 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations each year.”
Carullo, who has a business degree from Oral Roberts University, insists that his salary should be compared with that of CEOs at cable networks such as CNN. He says his board of directors offered him even more but he turned it down because “I am blessed beyond my imagination. … I don’t need it.”
This is not the first time that the Cerullo family’s interrelated operations have come under scrutiny. David Cerullo’s father, Morris Cerullo, was indicted for tax evasion in California in 2005 — although the charges were dismissed by a Bush-appointed judge on grounds of prosecutorial error — and was sued in 2000 by two former employees who alleged that the elder Cerullo used donations for personal profit.
On that earlier occasion, one of the plaintiff’s lawyers explained that “[Morris] Cerullo purports to have first met God at the age of eight. Since then, his life has apparently been one unbelievable experience after another. He says he was led out of a Jewish orphanage by two angelic beings; transported to heaven for a face-to-face meeting with God; has the ability to predict the future; can heal the sick; and has told audiences when they look at him they ‘are looking at God.’”
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This son-of-a-bitch is not only making money by duping those in need, he is laughing all the way to the bank on our backs too since his “church” is tax free. Pricks like this don’t work for God.
This pale ass pig is a big fraud and should be treated as such!
< ...told audiences when they look at him they ‘are looking at God.'>
People used to be shunned for this kind of hubris, and excommunicated (or worse) for this sort of blasphemy.
Oh for the good old days.
I love to hear about morons being ripped of by religious fraudsters. All religion is fraud and the sooner people realize this simple fact the sooner they will realize that we are the only ones who can rescue our planet from the destruction that is taking place.
There is no God to rescue us. We must do it our selves.
God should be smote-ing the hell out of this creep
Except there is no god. Get over it.
btw, the present-tense you’re looking for is ’smite.’
Looks like hes ready to go to a city park and hand out some candy.
PROOF POSITIVE–AGAIN!–OF HOW INCREDIBLY STUPID HUMANS ARE!
What do you expect from Bible-belt hicks?
I’m so glad I’m educated… Those poor bastards.
that scam is as old as the hills of rome; it’s called ‘Catholicism’
Hey, God made the sheep in his flock to be fleeced!
Man, I really gotta start a church.
I would but I can’t. I have a conscience.
Looks like upper SC/lower Mecklenburg good Christian believers have another Jim&Tammy show on their hands. Once a United Methodist bishop remarked, “You can take anything and hang the name “religion” on it and some people will take off after it.” I say give this creepy bastard enough rope & he’ll soon hang himself….hopefully in the penitentiary. The Charlotte-area evangelical dudes, however, kissed Jim Baker’s ring, and possibly more, right up to the prison gate. Whoop-tee-dee! what shitheads!
What a great business model. I can hand out “God’s debt cancellations” too. 1 year of debt cancellation, $39.95. 2 years, $79.95. 5 years, $199.95. Permanent God’s debt cancellation, $999.95.
Priority check in with no waiting in line at Heaven’s Gate after death on earth, $4999.95.
Worried about going to Purgatory or Hell? We sell insurance!
I would pay Tony Soprano’s “insurance” plan before I put one plug nickel up this pimp’s ass. The only truth these bastards know beyond a doubt, is there is no god–that is why they get away with keeping their filthy lucor,they know NO ONE is to stop them; their sheeples are to dim-witted to get the torches and pitch folks out.This is the same thing Stalin did to the people of Ukraine in the ’30’s–con them to work their land for the “great’ cause and then take the crops and sell them on the world market while Moscow rakes the dough in and the Ukrainians starve to death..
last year’s budget - 80 million - 80 mil!!! mostly from people who are desperately, oppressively in debt no less … where do so many idiots come from? american spirituality is an oxymoron … gawd never told you to ‘go forth and fleece’, it is written however that [paraphrasing here] ‘it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven’ …
Is it any different than having confession on Wednesday to forgive sins, and then collecting money at Sunday Mass? Or selling self-help books, Bibles and “blessed” trinkets at church or the local religious store? Or taking laundry money from criminals? Perhaps these are money-changers/thieves stories, 21st century-styled.
I’ve never noticed anything in the Constitution that says Churches shall be tax free. I wonder which preacher thought that one up and how much it took to bribe Congress into passing it. I believe the vile practice of churches being tax free has lost it’s value to our society. If churches are tax free so should Athiests and Agnostics be.
The dogma of killing for god has come and gone but the prosperity gospel still spews unabated.
It’s time to start taxing the churches. $1.6M is obscene for a so called man of the cloth.
Carullo, who has a business degree from Oral Roberts University, insists that his salary should be compared with that of CEOs at cable networks such as CNN.
THEN TAX HIM like the cable CEOs are! What an incredibly arrogant thing for him to say.
I urge every one of you to see Bill Maher’s “Religulous.”
At one point in the movie, he interviews a Latino-American who claims to be ‘the second coming of Christ,’ (He has ‘Jesus’ in his name) and when questioned by Bill he says that Jesus had a wife and after he was executed Mary traveled the globe and he claimed to be from the same bloodline… etc etc but he has a ministry down in Florida, and he has over 100,000 followers worldwide.
I hate stupid people, and yet I’m surrounded by them every day.
Say, offering unfounded benefit for money? isn’t that considered false advertising and illegal? Someone should force him to prove his claims, drag him and his “god will forgo your debt” into court and see what happens.
perhaps they can subpoena god as was done in a previous case that the Judge wanted to toss out claiming that there was no address to bring the summons to, so god can’t be contacted (which was part of the point of asking for god’s testimony in the lawsuit).
If we can’t get god to testify in court, no one aught to be able to make claims of what god says or wants.
Sounds like the rebirth of PTL “Pass the Loot”