Author: William Lobdell
Publication: Los Angeles Times
Date: September 19, 2004
Pastor Paul Crouch looked into the
camera and told his flock that Trinity Broadcasting Network needed $8 million
to spread the Gospel throughout India and save 1 billion souls from damnation.
Crouch, head of the world's largest
Christian broadcasting network, said even viewers who couldn't afford a
$1,000 pledge should take a "step of faith" and make one anyway. The Lord
would repay them many times over, he said.
"Do you think God would have any
trouble getting $1,000 extra to you somehow?" he asked during a "Praise-a-thon"
broadcast from Trinity's studios in Costa Mesa.
The network's "prayer partners"
came through once again, phoning in enough pledges in one evening to put
Christian programming on 8,700 television stations across India.
TBN was not short on cash. In fact,
it could have paid for the India expansion out of the interest on its investment
portfolio. But at TBN, the appeals for money never stop. Nor does the flow
of contributions.
Over the last 31 years, Crouch and
his wife, Jan, have parlayed their viewers' small expressions of faith
into a worldwide broadcasting empire - and a life of luxury.
The network, little known outside
fundamentalist Christian circles, was buffeted by unwanted publicity last
week, when The Times reported that Crouch had paid a former employee $425,000
to keep silent about an alleged homosexual tryst.
But millions of people needed no
introduction to TBN. Its 24-hour-a-day menu of sermons, faith healing,
inspirational movies and Christian talk shows reaches viewers around the
globe via satellite, cable and broadcast stations. Its programs are dubbed
in 11 different languages.
In the U.S. alone, TBN is watched
by more than 5 million households each week, more than its three main competitors
combined. Its signature offering, "Praise the Lord," has as many prime-time
viewers as Chris Matthews' "Hardball" on MSNBC - remarkable for a faith
network. Televangelists who once dominated the field, such as Pat Robertson,
now air their shows on TBN.
Much as Ted Turner did for TV news,
the Crouches have created a global infrastructure for religious broadcasting.
But that is just one element in their success. Another is a doctrine called
the "prosperity gospel," which promises worshipers that God will shower
them with material blessings if they sacrifice to spread His word.
This theme - that viewers will be
rewarded, even enriched, for donating - pervades TBN programming.
"When you give to God," Crouch said
during a typical appeal for funds, "you're simply loaning to the Lord and
He gives it right on back."
Though it carries no advertising,
the network generates more than $170 million a year in revenue, tax filings
show. Viewer contributions account for two-thirds of that money.
Lower-income, rural Americans in
the South are among TBN's most faithful donors. The network says that 70%
of its contributions are in amounts less than $50.
Those small gifts underwrite a lifestyle
that most of the ministry's supporters can only dream about.
Paul, 70, collects a $403,700 salary
as TBN's chairman and president. Jan, 67, is paid $361,000 as vice president
and director of programming. Those are the highest salaries paid by any
of the 12 major religious nonprofits whose finances are tracked by the
Chronicle of Philanthropy.
TBN's "prayer partners" pay for
a variety of perquisites as well.
The Crouches travel the world in
a $7.2-million, 19-seat Canadair Turbojet owned by TBN. They drive luxury
cars. They have charged expensive dinners and furniture to TBN credit cards.
Thirty ministry-owned homes are
at their disposal - including a pair of Newport Beach mansions, a mountain
retreat near Lake Arrowhead and a ranch in Texas.
The Crouches' family members share
in the benefits. Their oldest son, Paul Jr., earns $90,800 a year as TBN's
vice president for administration. Another son, Matthew, has received $32
million from the network since 1999 to produce Christian-themed movies
such as "The Omega Code."
Overseeing these expenditures is
a board of directors that consists of Paul Crouch, Jan Crouch and Paul's
74-year-old sister, Ruth Brown. Control resides primarily with Paul. In
a 2001 legal deposition, Jan said she did not know she was a corporate
officer and could not recall the last board meeting she attended.
TBN's declared mission as a tax-exempt
Christian charity is to produce and broadcast television shows and movies
"for the purpose of spreading the Gospel to the world."
Supporters' tax-deductible donations
fund the ministry's worldwide television network - and keep it growing.
Expansion is an overriding goal. Televised appeals seek money for new transmitters,
more satellite time and fresh cable deals to bring God's word to an ever-larger
audience.
As more people hear the Crouches'
message, more are inspired to send donations. That pays for further expansion,
which brings more viewers - and more donations.
The formula has proved extraordinarily
successful. While other religious broadcasters have struggled, TBN has
posted surpluses averaging nearly $60 million a year since 1997. Its balance
sheet for 2002, the most recent available, lists net assets of $583 million,
including $238 million in Treasury bonds and other government securities
and $31 million in cash. It has 400 employees across the country.
Such figures have prompted questions
about why the network continues to plead for contributions. Wall Watchers,
a nonprofit group in Charlotte, N.C., that monitors religious ministries,
has urged Christian donors to stop writing checks to TBN.
"They have more money than they
need," said Wall Watchers chairman Howard "Rusty" Leonard, a former investment
manager for the Templeton mutual fund group. "There's nothing like this.
It's over the top."
The Crouches declined to be interviewed
for this article. Through TBN officials, they said the ministry keeps raising
money so it can avoid going into debt as it pays for TV stations, satellite
time and other ways to spread the Gospel.
Regarding the Crouches' salaries,
the ministry said that during the network's first 21 years, Paul was paid
less than $40,000 a year on average and Jan less than $35,000. The couple
accepted higher compensation only in the last decade, as they approached
retirement, officials said. Their current salaries were determined by independent
compensation experts hired by the ministry's accounting firm, TBN said.
Devoted viewers say the Crouches
have nothing to apologize for. Indeed, the ministry's material success
is part of its appeal to believers - proof that the Crouches enjoy God's
favor.
"The fruit of God is on their life,"
said Tennille Lowe, a computer analyst in Phoenix City, Ala., who is in
her 20s and watches the network every day. "If they weren't prospering,
I'd say, 'Wait a minute. I don't see any evidence [of God's blessing] in
their life.' "
The most visible evidence of the
Crouches' success is Trinity Christian City International in Costa Mesa,
a striking white wedding cake of a building surrounded by reflecting pools,
sculptures and neoclassical colonnades.
Visitors to the complex, alongside
the San Diego Freeway, can attend live studio broadcasts, buy TBN-branded
clothing and stroll down a re-creation of Via Dolorosa, the street in Jerusalem
where Jesus walked to his crucifixion. In a high-tech 50-seat theater,
people watch biblical movies in seats that tremble during the quakes, storms
and other disasters recounted in the Scriptures.
The ministry owns a similar complex
near Dallas and a Christian entertainment center outside Nashville.
But most TBN devotees will never
visit those places. They connect with the network through its television
programs, which provide a spiritual lifeline for millions. Many of these
viewers worship in their living rooms. TBN preachers are their pastors.
"I don't go to church.. I turn the
TV on and it's right there," said Sherry Peters, a bookkeeper in Mississippi.
"Sometimes I will watch it for weeks on end, every day."
Olivia Foster, 52, of Westminster,
sends the network $70 a month out of her $820 disability check.
"Without TBN, I wouldn't be here,"
said Foster, who lives alone and suffers from AIDS (news - web sites).
"That's the Gospel truth. It gave me purpose that God could use me. I watch
it 18 hours a day."
A Ham-Radio Start
Paul Crouch is the son of Pentacostal
missionaries. Raised in Missouri, he took an interest in broadcasting at
12, when a friend introduced him to ham radio. By 15, he was a licensed
operator. In a high school essay, he wrote that he "would one day use this
invention of shortwave radio to send the Gospel around the world," according
to his autobiography, "Hello World!"
At the Central Bible Institute in
Springfield, Mo., Crouch and fellow students wired the campus for low-wattage
radio and broadcast Gospel messages.
After graduation, Crouch stayed
in Springfield and went to work for the Assemblies of God, a branch of
Pentacostalism whose rituals include faith healing and speaking in tongues.
His job was to maintain a film library. At the time - the early 1950s -
many Protestant denominations were experimenting with movies and television
as tools to win converts and teach the faithful.
During a visit to Rapid City, S.D.,
in 1956, Crouch was smitten by "a slight 98-pound angel" in a red dress,
he later recalled. This was Jan Bethany, daughter of a leading Assemblies
of God pastor.
The two married a year later and
eventually settled in Rapid City, where Crouch became an associate pastor
of his brother-in-law's church. In 1961, the Crouches left to run the Assemblies
of God's new broadcast production facility in Burbank.
Twelve years later, the Crouches
went out on their own, renting air time on KBSA-TV Channel 46 in Santa
Ana. TBN's first studio set included pieces of furniture from the Crouches'
bedroom, with a shower curtain as a backdrop.
The televangelists Jim and Tammy
Faye Bakker, then friends of the couple, moved from Michigan to help with
the fledgling network and lived with the Crouches for a time.
The partnership didn't last long.
In his autobiography, Crouch says that Jim Bakker tried to take over the
network, but failed. The Bakkers then left for South Carolina and started
their own TV ministry, which was a huge success before it was wrecked by
scandal in 1987. Bakker admitted to an affair with a secretary and was
later convicted of defrauding followers who invested in a religious retreat.
TBN, meanwhile, was quietly broadening
its reach - with help from the Almighty, by Crouch's account. During the
network's first day on the air, God moved a mountain so a clear broadcast
signal could reach an antenna atop Mt. Wilson, Crouch wrote in his autobiography.
"And we will ever know that it was
not just a spiritual mountain - this was a real dirt, rock and tree mountain!"
In its early days, TBN delivered
programming through a web of UHF and low-power stations. Then, as the cable
industry developed, Crouch bought time on systems across the country.
One evening in 1975, he was inspired
to embrace a new technology. Crouch wrote that he was sitting in the den
of his Newport Beach home when God projected a map of the U.S. on the ceiling.
Beams of light struck major population centers, then spread throughout
the country.
"I sat there transfixed by what
I was seeing as I cried out to God to show me what all this meant," Crouch
wrote. "As I waited upon the Lord, He spoke a ringing, resounding word
to my spirit - 'Satellite!' "
While other televangelists concentrated
on developing programs, Crouch built an unmatched distribution system.
TBN outlasted or eclipsed its rivals and now leads all faith networks in
revenue and viewership.
Today, the ministry and its subsidiaries
own 23 full-power stations in the U.S. - including KTBN Channel 40 in Santa
Ana - and 252 low-power stations serving rural areas.
Overseas, the network owns interests
in stations in El Salvador (news - web sites), Spain and Kenya. Contracts
with cable and satellite companies and station owners further extend its
reach.
All-told, TBN airs on more than
6,000 stations in 75 countries, including places as remote as Rarotonga
in the Cook Islands and Mbabane, Swaziland. Its programs are also available
over the Internet.
To serve this diverse audience,
translators at the network's International Production Center in Irving,
Texas, dub programs into Spanish, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Hebrew, French,
Italian, Russian, Arabic, Hindi and Chinese.
A typical day of TBN programming
includes health and lifestyle shows, Bible study, religious movies and
late-night Christian rock videos. Pentecostal pastors espouse the prosperity
gospel and offer prophecies about the Second Coming of Jesus.
Mainstream evangelists such as Robertson,
Billy Graham and Robert H. Schuller appear on the network. Some lease their
air time. Such payments bring in more than $35 million a year, nearly one-fifth
of TBN's revenue. So many preachers want air time that the network keeps
a waiting list.
The most popular offering is "Praise
the Lord," a nightly, two-hour mix of talk, prayer and music. The Crouches
and a revolving cast of guest hosts hold forth on a set decorated with
stained-glass windows, chandeliers, imitation French antiques and a gold-painted
piano.
With his silver hair, mustache and
bifocals, Paul Crouch comes across as a grandfatherly sort. What he calls
his "German temper" can rise quickly, however. He often punctuates a point
by shaking a finger at the camera.
"Get out of God's way," he said
once, referring to TBN's detractors. "Quit blocking God's bridges or God
is going to shoot you, if I don't."
Jan Crouch wears heavy makeup, long
false lashes and champagne-colored wigs piled high on her head. She speaks
in a sing-song voice and lets tears flow freely, whether reading a viewer's
letter or recalling how God resurrected her pet chicken when she was a
child.
She and Paul project the image of
a happily married couple. But off the air, they lead separate lives and
rarely stay under the same roof, according to former TBN employees and
others who have spent time with the couple.
The Crouches also present themselves
as thrifty and budget-conscious. During one telethon, Paul said his personal
$50,000 donation to TBN had wiped out the family checking account. He often
says that he and his wife live in the same Newport Beach tract house they
bought 33 years ago for $38,500.
But nowadays, neither of the Crouches
uses that home much. Whether in Southern California or on the road, they
live in a variety of other TBN-owned homes. In all, the network owns 30
residences in California, Texas, Tennessee and Ohio - all paid for in cash,
property records show.
These include two Newport Beach
mansions in a gated community overlooking the Pacific. One of them was
recently on the market for an asking price of $8 million. A real estate
advertisement said it featured "11,000 square feet of opulent European
luxury with regulation tennis courts and a rambling terraced hillside orchard
with view of the blue Pacific."
In Costa Mesa, the ministry owns
11 homes in a gated development adjacent to Trinity Christian City International.
In Sky Forest, a resort community
in the San Bernardino National Forest, the network owns a four-bedroom,
five-bath home.
TBN officials say the real estate
purchases were consistent with the network's charitable mission, because
the homes serve as venues for broadcasts and provide lodging for the Crouches
and fellow televangelists as they travel across the country. The properties
have also been good investments, they said.
From 1994 to 1996, TBN spent $13.7
million to acquire Twitty City, a tourist attraction on the former Nashville-area
estate of country singer Conway Twitty, along with some adjacent property.
After extensive renovations, the site reopened as Trinity Music City USA,
a Christian entertainment park with TV studios, a church, a concert hall
and a movie theater.
The amenities include a pair of
condominiums for the Crouches. One is furnished in Paul's taste, the other
in Jan's, former employees said.
In Colleyville, Texas, near the
network's International Production Center, TBN owns nine homes on 66 acres
along a country road, a spread called Shiloh Ranch. Six horses graze in
a pasture; TBN officials say they were gifts from admirers.
Paul and Jan visit from time to
time, and TBN occasionally broadcasts specials from the ranch.
Ministry officials say that a Christian
drug treatment program also uses the property, but former employees say
the program left years ago and Colleyville officials say there is no permit
for such an operation.
A Passion for Antiques
Wherever they happen to be staying,
the Crouches indulge expensive tastes courtesy of TBN donors, former employees
say.
Kelly Whitmore, a former personal
assistant to Jan Crouch, said in interviews with The Times that she used
a TBN American Express card to make numerous personal purchases for Jan
and Paul, including groceries, clothes, cosmetics, alcohol and a tanning
bed.
Whitmore, 43, who lives outside
Nashville, worked at TBN from 1992 to 1997. On the air, Jan once called
her "my right arm."
TBN officials now describe her as
a disgruntled ex-employee whose word cannot be trusted. Whitmore acknowledged
that she has hired an agent and hopes to sell her story to TV or film producers.
Whitmore and another former employee,
who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Jan Crouch's special passion
was antiques.
Credit card receipts show that in
December 1994, TBN bought about 40 items from Cool Springs Antiques in
Brentwood, Tenn., including a three-piece wine cabinet for $10,000, a $2,800
candelabrum, a $350 birdbath and a seven-piece bedroom suite that cost
$3,995.
At Harris Antiques and Imports in
Forth Worth, Texas, TBN spent $32,851 in a single day in 1995. The purchases
included two French chests for about $1,900 each, a $1,650 brass planter
and a $1,095 bronze urn.
TBN officials said the items were
reproductions, not antiques, and were used to furnish studio sets and network-owned
houses. They said the tanning bed was used to darken the skin of 25 actors
cast in TBN stage productions set in Biblical times.
Whitmore said she regularly used
ministry money and a network-owned van to stock the bars in Paul's and
Jan's separate condominiums at Trinity Music City.
Whitmore said the Crouches directed
her to make the purchases at a store called Frugal McDougal, hoping it
would not be recognizable on credit-card statements as a liquor store.
Credit card receipts also offer
a glimpse of the Crouches' dining habits. In Nashville in the mid-1990s,
Paul Crouch hosted dinners with TBN employees in a private room of Mario's,
an upscale Italian restaurant, spending $180 or more per person for parties
of up to a dozen, the receipts show.
A former top TBN official described
heavy consumption of wine and liquor at a dozen such dinners. The ex-official
spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a fear of retaliation.
"I have no problem with people drinking,"
the former official said, "but I have a problem drinking with [prayer]
partners' money."
In separate interviews, Whitmore,
the former TBN official and a third person who traveled and socialized
with ministry leaders said that at the end of a dinner, Paul Crouch would
sometimes hold up a TBN credit card and say: "Thank you, little partners!"
In a statement, ministry officials
said that if Crouch thanked donors, it was "a sincere gesture and remembrance
of true thanks."
They also said it was appropriate
for TBN to pay for dinners at which network business was conducted. When
network credit cards were used to pay for personal expenses or for alcohol,
the Crouches or other TBN officials reimbursed the ministry, they said.
Unending Appeals
TBN never stops raising money. All
that varies is the method.
The network appeals directly for
cash during weeklong "Praise-a-thons" held twice a year, in the spring
and fall. The approach is not subtle. The Crouches suggest that "Praise
the Lord" will go dark if viewers don't send money.
No mention is made of the ministry's
flush finances.
"The question is: Shall we keep
this great, live, prime-time 'Praise the Lord' program on the air for another
year?" Paul Crouch asked during last November's telethon. "It's really
up to you."
Jan, from a studio in Atlanta, added:
"Oh, dear friends, come on. We've got to keep 'Praise the Lord' on the
air."
Viewers pledge a total of $90 million
during a typical "Praise-a-thon." TBN says it collects about half the money
promised.
During the rest of the year, the
ministry keeps donations flowing by less intrusive means.
Except during "Praise-a-Thons,"
pastors appearing on the network can solicit donations only during the
last 30 seconds of a half-hour show or the last 60 seconds of a one-hour
show. TBN executives call this "the 11th Commandment."
But the network's toll-free "prayer
line" is always visible at the bottom of the TV screen, bringing a steady
stream of calls from people troubled by debts, illnesses and other problems.
The calls are answered by paid and
volunteer "prayer warriors" in a cluster of drab two-story buildings in
a Tustin office park.
The workers, Bibles at the ready,
write down callers' requests - for healings, financial relief, mended marriages,
jobs - and pray with them on the phone. TBN officials say the prayer requests
are then taken to a chapel on the premises and prayed over.
While they have callers on the phone,
the volunteers ask for their names and addresses. Later, the information
is entered into a direct-mail database, one of Trinity's most powerful
fundraising tools.
If the sumptuous Costa Mesa complex
with its biblical murals and reflecting pools is TBN's spiritual heart,
the Tustin complex is its financial nerve center.
Workers there deal with a daily
avalanche of mail from around the world - poems, prayers, testimonials
and donations in a variety of currencies. With surveillance cameras overhead,
employees process the mail in an assembly-line-like operation, separating
donations from prayer requests. The Spartan décor and brisk pace
suggest a bank processing center.
In an adjoining room, employees
enter the letter writers' names and addresses into the direct-mail database,
which has 1.2 million names. An in-house printing and mailing operation
generates thousands of letters a day asking the faithful to give.
Sheryl Silva of Anaheim is among
those who do. She says the network has been a source of strength during
difficult times, including a period of homelessness.
"I love to give whenever I can -
at least $15 per month," said Silva, 46, who has glaucoma and gets by on
a monthly disability check of about $900. "I give because I don't want
them to go off the air. They
might be the only thing good on
TV that day."
Three Days in Iraq (news - web sites)
Just as the fundraising never ceases,
TBN's efforts to widen its audience are unending.
In recent years, the network has
focused on winning viewers in the former Soviet-bloc countries, the Middle
East and Asia. Crouch is negotiating with Chinese officials to make TBN
available in hotels, embassies, foreign residential compounds and churches.
Earlier this year, the network converted
to a digital signal, enabling it to deliver three spinoff channels through
the same pipeline that carries TBN.
The Spanish-language channel Enlace
USA serves the growing evangelical audience in Central and South America.
JC-TV offers youth-oriented Christian programs. The Church Channel broadcasts
church services.
In March, Crouch made a three-day
trip to Iraq, where his son Matt filmed him giving a satellite receiver
to an Iraqi pastor. Crouch handed $10,000 in cash to another Iraqi clergyman
to buy receivers for churches and individuals who wanted to watch TBN.
In a fundraising letter, Crouch
said that while he was in the war zone, God granted him another miracle.
"I honestly believe that Matt and
I, with our small group, were made invisible to the barriers, checkpoints,
armed guards, military infrastructure and enemies all around us!" he wrote.
"Supernatural favor was our portion as we moved effortlessly through the
war-torn and suffering city of Baghdad."
Then he asked his followers for
their support.
"Will you help us help them? I know
you will!"