Abominations

Watchdog Group Wants TBN Leaders to Step Aside

Televangelists reject the request.
Wall Watchers seeks reforms and an inquiry into finances.
A church watchdog group recommended Tuesday that Jan and Paul Crouch step aside as leaders of California-based Trinity Broadcasting Network while a panel of Christian leaders investigates its finances. An executive for TBN, the world's largest Christian network, rejected the idea but said he would meet with critics and review audited financial statements and other related documents with them. "We will turn over to them whatever we need to turn over," said Paul Crouch Jr., a network executive. Wall Watchers, a North Carolina group that monitors the finances of more than 500 Christian nonprofits, proposed the series of reforms in response to recent stories in The Times that detailed the Crouches' luxury lifestyle. The stories have reported that the network takes in far more money than it spends and provided a $425,000 settlement to a former employee who said he had had a homosexual encounter with Paul Crouch. Wall Watchers officials recommended that TBN revamp its board of directors, which consists of Jan and Paul Crouch and his sister, Ruth Brown, to be independent of the Crouch family. The group also proposed that the network stop relying on the "prosperity gospel" — a religious principle that donors will receive financial rewards from God by giving money to TBN — for fundraising. Wall Watcher officials said that if TBN didn't adequately address their concerns involving donor money, they would ask the IRS and relevant state attorneys general to investigate whether "the ministry's charitable purpose, rather than the Crouches' reported lavish lifestyle, is being diligently pursued." Posted by Editor at September 29, 2004 04:28 PM