Hello and welcome to the “Megachurch Pastors Behaving Badly” edition of Everyone’s Entitled to Joe’s Opinion. Today we shall focus upon the misdeeds of a few megachurch pastors that have come to light lately.
Steven Furtick, Elevation Church: Poor Furtick is having a bit of a rough go of things lately, as he has come under some heavy scrutiny because of his new house. The house is worth well north of $1 million, and people aren’t too crazy about this. They also aren’t too crazy about the fact that Elevation is somewhat less than fully transparent with respect to how much its top pastors make. The Wartburg Watch has several posts chronicling the Furtick situation in great detail. Seems Furtick got his inspiration from…
Ed Young, Fellowship Church: Like Furtick, Young also has a ginormous house worth well north of $1 million. Young financed this through a somewhat sketchy arrangement known as the “Palometa Revocable Trust”. Young receives a sizeable housing allowance: $240,000 a year on top of his salary which is north of $1 million. Young also attracted a great deal of attention a couple of years back when he and his wife slept on the roof of the church to promote his new book in which he encourages married couples to have mind-blowing sex for a week.
Perry Noble, NewSpring Church: Noble and NewSpring recently settled a lawsuit. Anderson University professor James Duncan was not crazy about some things NewSpring was doing, so he blogged about his concerns. Several NewSpring staffers and volunteers then embarked upon a campaign of all-out harassment that included forging his letter of resignation, setting up a fake Twitter account in his name and posting all manner of obscene things to it, and sabotaging an adoption attempt by him and his wife.
You can read in greater detail about Young and Noble on The Wartburg Watch. Duncan outlines the whole thing at his own blog “The Pajama Pages“. FBC Jax Watchdogs has also reported extensively on Noble and Furtick, and they also have a great deal to say about megachurch pastors who abuse the concept of tithing.
Everyone's Entitled to Joe's Opinion 