Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's first episode of the Nonprofits. In kind of a Weird Flex, Kelvin coberis pastor for New Life Christian Church International. Excuse me a New Life Church International of Plant City, Florida, chose an anecdote about an alleged recent donation of ten thousand dollars
to drive home the message of a recent sermon. In a video posted to Twitter on June fifth by right Wing Watch, Colberts dramatically recounted a story of a vague unnamed man asking the pastor for his wiring instructions and then casually dropping ten bands in his personal account a few days later. Beautifully, Even among Christians, the pastor's actions have been ill received, with some leaving comments such as good look at the Pearly Gates pastor, and another referring
to it as disgraceful. This story is from the Bin News by the Black Information Network on June twenty third, twenty twenty fifth. So I have there's a little more I want to add, but I want to hear from you guys. First, John by Calvin's own admission, that will kind of get into it. He received this donation. I'm going to call it a gift because it went to him, not to his church, So I think calling it a
donation is a bit generous, charitable, you could say. But he received this for as an incentive for supporting Donald Trump, for you know, speaking that way in his sermons. So definitionally it's it's a violation of the Johnson Amendment. So color me cynical here, But are we surprised by any part of this? And do you think we even should expect Colberts to face any consequences or is this just another case of pastors going to past.
Well, in my not, so it strikes me, let's just put it this way. It strikes me as normal for the religious grifters in the world, who who want to be on the take for whatever they can get from anybody. If a thin man guy, some mysterious figure, it sounds like he's trying to hide where he really got it from. Actually, well I don't know who gave it to me. But you know, people don't throw ten grand at somebody without at least having a receipt, you know, So it's like,
what the hell? This thing sounds shady from the beginning, but it doesn't surprise me at all, And will he have to you know, cough up the money or something, if you know, is the I R S going to hit him? They're a five oh one c four religious organization, so no, they don't even have to show their books to anybody. The only thing we know about it is that he said so. So it's like there's no, there's not going to be no repercussions to him, at least
not at the moment. Maybe in the future there'll be laws passed against this source yet political contributions to churches to keep doing political things, which is illegal. You know, we don't know, but hopefully if there's a h in the future, when there's some actual rational people in office,
we'll get something on that or to that effect. The IRS right now is powerless because they defunded them and they are trying to make sure that they don't do things like audit the billionaires who cheat on their taxes regularly. So there we go.
Yeah, and to be I was thinking the same thing. There's a chance that, like, you know, is this going to stop in the future. Maybe, But at the same time, we recently within the past couple of months on the nonprofits covered there's somewhere where there's a discussion about removing the restrictions on charitable organizations from participating in, you know,
political activities to a certain degree. So not only would this not be enforced more, but they would be removing it, and this would just start taking place legally more because like they're already doing this anyway, so let's yeah, and we're not punishing them for it, so let's just remove the restriction. It's kind of how we interviewed that. But you said that it seems kind of fishy, and I agree.
I think he made it up. The details they feel to me like they kind of just like they manifested in a way like that they're just right to convince you that it really happened. The man like he talks about being in the Rose Garden, which maybe it's a place that his congregation's familiar with.
So yeah, but didn't Trump dig up the rose Garden in the White House? Didn't they?
Possibly? I'm not familiar, but he was. He was talking about having been at the White House, so maybe maybe that is, you know, what he's.
Talking about part of the White House lawn. So I'm thank Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I probably should have put that together, ask for his wiring instructions he gave him to him, and then the pastor even offers like for no reason, like how much money he thought the guy might send him, which means that either he was like fixated on this amount, which is kind of a strange thing for someone who's receiving a donation genuinely, or he's he's making it up and he's including that detail just to intensify the impact
of like the true donation. But Damien, we haven't given you a chance yet, so just kind of like generally and vaguely, I guess, and you know what, what's your sort of take on this? How did how did this Leand for you.
Well, look for me, I think the biggest thing to me is ask the question how far has Christianity come from its roots? Because if you read the Pauline epistles, you will see that Paul basically boasts about how poor he is and that he has to support himself in order to continue the ministry, to support the true And I know we're all irreligious here, but I think there's something to be said about those churches that you know,
run on the smell of an oily rag. I think I've used this line before, because you know, they're the ones who are doing it for the genuine love of it, whereas there's just something really weird about American Christianity, where Christianity is in so much a movement as it is
a business. And so I'm looking, I'm looking at this, and I saw the video of the pastor like talking about it, and like he has got the big building, he's got the nice, nice suit, and he's well, you know, made up, and you know it looks very slick and professional. But he is one among many. You know, you can name like a dozen pastors who have this really high profile image and are about riches and about how much
money they're getting. You know, you can say Joel Osting, Kenneth Copeland, krefflow Dollar.
This is a Florida man, Florida man. It's a little different from me.
So so I think what Jonathan mentioned about this possibly being a violation of the five oh one CE regulations about about donations being made. But then the problem is is that unless assuming this is real, this actually happened, the fact that it went to him rather than the church is a bit of a you know, a bit of a workaround. And so the fact that this so, the fact that this money went to him, how much how much of that ten k will his congregation? See?
What will he do with that ten k? Will he support you know, like homeless people will support domestic violence victims? Will he you know, help a single mother? And yeah, exactly, this is my This is my thing. This is if this were I suppose like a more genuine social Christianity, you know, that ten k would be use for charitable purposes to help the congregation rather than to gain interest in this guy's big fat bank account.
Yeah. And one of the things that makes it a little fishy is since the whole story smells like weak old fish the the you know, the whole story. Did he just griff or did he just skim this off the top of this great congregation? And needing an explanation for the deposit in his account? You know, who knows what their internal auditing is, but you know, probably not very strong, I would think, or.
It's interesting by him or his family, and so any internal orders will just whitewash.
Yeah, that is interesting. I didn't think about my time. I was like, like, we kind of tend to agree that it seems like he made it up, but that's not super unheard of. Like pastors always seem to have a person that provides them with an anecdote from some time in their life that just happens to fit exactly what their message is. And in this case, for for Kevin Goberis, in this sermon, it was give me money,
Me plus money equals good. But I think they're like some other possibilities for like like uh, making up something like this that I thought is like he's because he's he's a person of color and because of who he supports politically, it's becoming increasingly unpopular for people going to hold that view. So I thought like perhaps as like I say, hey, like you know, I started doing this and good things started happening to me, So this is
what God wants me to do. And like that's part of the second one, like, hey, church, this is what God wants me to do. So if you're supporting me, you're supporting what God wants. And like the fact that he's asking for more money during this this you know, uh sermon is not doing him any favors to convince me that he just received this this large donation and it doesn't look like he's hurting for money in the first place, like you mentioned earlier about his his his
his settings during in the video. Yeah, so yeah, I mean we kind of all it seem to be on the same page about that. I like the point you made, Damien. I'm sorry I had to remember which one of you said it about, Like who where where the money went to? Right, because you said it didn't go to his church, it went to him, So does that change the legality of it? But what I think is what my concerns about the legality essentially is not that he received the money because
churches run on donations. That and a person can donate to a church because they like that message regardless of what the message is. But it is the message that he is using his platform for, whether he is receiving the money or the church is receiving it, I think is more of a I don't want to say non issue necessarily, but as far as legally, I think it hinges more on what he's using his platform form for. What do you think about that?
Yeah, it's well, there was a line that he says, I should have went this way a long time ago, and to me, that says it's not about the principle of supporting Trump, but the rewards that he can get personally for doing so. That that's me kind of says, says everything I need to know you.
Yeah, fair enough. He doesn't even necessarily maybe it may not even be that what he's saying reflects what he believes personally. He's more interested in the personal gain from saying that he believes it. Do you think that is that kind of accurate to what you mean?
I believe that. Yeah, sure, they don't believe saying, well, they don't believe what they're saying. These are grifters. They use religion as a as a cash cow. They're not. They have nothing to do with believing anything other than I'm getting rich off of this. And you know, all I have to do is not break character, and they will. You know, they will pay me their money and a lot of it, just for saying that I'm speaking to God.
So pay me. You know. They're liberal paying him to be him, which is like to act, to be an actor and fool them into thinking that he's actually a religious or other blessed person, which is kind of like okay for us, it's kind of like it's obvious that this is just a ploy. It's just another another just on that.
Jonathan the name Kreflo Dollar. You may or may not have heard of him. He is a African American pastor of a megachurch and he he once said in a sermon that I know he said this jokingly, but I think it does reveal something that you know, he said in a sermon that he wishes there were like barriers out the front of the church that as you walked in, it checked how much money you donated, and if you hadn't donated like these these big machines would come come
up and take you away. I thought, that's that may not be exactly what he said. You say something along those lines that indicated that you know, if you hadn't given, if you hadn't given enough, then you will be dealt with in some harsh method. All that so that's interesting. But then it turned out that police had been called to his home because of domestic violence allegations against his children.
I thought, well, yeah, it's just you know, like you have this you play this character on stage, but then you know, if you're harming your children back home, then you know where your shiny suit as much as you want. But you know, if you're abusing your children, right, then it's what's it worth, you know.
Yeah, And with the attempt to make it seem like by by being by having access to the church, I am more virtuous. I have, you know, the money to donate to the church, I'm more virtuous. I'm you know, superior morally or ethically or whatever it maybe. And then with with you know, a dark a secret or a skeletons in the closet, so to speak.
Yeah, some children is seen everywhere in the churches, all of them, you know. So they do that because it's a trusted positions and they have power over the kids and their parents, so they can keep themselves out of trouble by doing nasty things to children.
I raise one, if I can raise one line that he said in the video as well, and this is where where he says the next day he hadn't sent anything the past, continued, adding he initially thought the man had a little lying spirit and forgot what he told me.
And to me, that brought back some bad memories because I spent years in a church that believed in the demons that would influence what you do or what you forgot or you know what you didn't do, and all this all this kind of stuff, and like, for example, if you were an attractive young woman, you know, you were essentially accused of having a spirit of Jezebel trying
to lead men astray and things like that. And so it's just interesting that, you know, I said, like you might be doing this as part of the grift, Like sure, we can recontribute to that, or even if he genuinely believes it, the fact that there are grown adults that believe that spiritual entities, you know, cause people to lie to passes about spending money, that's like.
Really, and it also implies like that that would be considered chaos from the perspective of like a demon, which is allegedly eternal and like immortal, like that just like telling a lie to a pastor is chaotic enough to qualify as demonic.
Yeah, well there you go.
That's that's that's John that Yeah, it sounded like you you had more you want to add a little bit of go go ahead, what do you think?
Well, if I can remember what I was thinking at the time, I was just thinking that, you know, one other thing about some of these pastors I'm quite sure actually believe somewhere and what they're doing. In other words, I'm sure there are pastors out there who are sincere. I'm not saying all pastors are like this guy, but this guy's words alone condemned to that. You know, there are a lot of pastors out there, I'm sure who really think they're not causing any harm even though they are.
So it's like, you know, how how do you how do you get people to understand that your religion is not supposed to be used as a weapon against other people.
And that's that's where I get a little bit off kilter with this stuff, is because uh, you know, there they've weaponized their religion to the point where, first off, it's a huge grift they're not supposed to They're supposed to have taken vows of poverty, you know, back in the day, you know where there were you know, even the monks, you know though they used to they ended up making tons of money on their beer and their
wine that they grew and made. But they you know, they were supposed to be in vows of poverty, you know, which means that they made a lot of money, but it all went to the bishop and all the brothers are sitting down there working in the fields. So it's like, I don't get this. This has been one big grift for about seventeen hundred years. You would think that, you know, after the first part. You know, Christianity became popular because
it was the community. The Christian communities were like, had all the social niceties, all the nice social safety nets. If somebody got beaten almost to death, they would heal him, you know, they would give him medical care. They if he lost his job, they would find him another one. Or the social connections were strong, and Christians took care of Christians and they didn't need the government to be
involved in that. But of course, when you're in a very violent era of humanity, one of the things that happens is that all the people aren't Christians, don't have this backup, right, So how do you get this backup? You become a Christian. And so the movement grew because the Mitherians weren't doing that, and the other religious people weren't doing that. But the Christians were communal, and they say they had a little bit of a leg up
on that. But once you've got institutionalized, it went the hell, you know, and that's just you know, they got rid of the Gnostics and the aurex and that sort of thing, the heresies.
And this is why I asked Jonathan, how far has Christianity come from its roots to the point that it's now a business?
Yeah? Yeah, somewhere around somewhere around the first third Crusades it became a business.
Look, you could possibly argue even earlier than that. But as I said, this is why I point out in the Pauline epistles, Paul boss about about his poverty, and I have no doubt that even throughout even since, even during the first First Crusades, you know, there were people who genuinely believed in it as a social movement to
be doing good, regardless of the financial reward. But it's just that with any enterprise, politics, religion, charity, like you name it, there'll be people who are in it for the money.
Well, the Knights Templar are the ones who made mountains of money in the Holy Land because they would escort these Christian caravans into Jerusalem, so that they there were so many bandits and things along the way, but they wouldn't mess with a bunch of fully armored knights on It was a little different when you just had a knife and you were going to go, you know, a cost of pilgrim. But when those pilgrims are, you know,
surrounded by knights, not a good idea. But they made their their fortunes that way and went back to Europe and bought huge tracts of land, and and the Church got jealous of them, and then the King of France owed them so much money that he decided he was They both decided, well, we can get rid of the
whole order. You know, we'll just call them heretics, and we'll make up all bunch of shit about them and burn them at the stake, you know, and then we'll just take all our money in their lands, which is pretty much what happened, except for the ones who escaped to Portugal. Well story, that was awesome, cool, But this isn't the history show.
The this is. This is.
The history of religion. Is quite interesting just seeing how Christianity has morphed over the years. And look, I just wonder, in like one hundred and five hundred thousand years time, what will Christianity be and what will how will Christians then look back on the business, business fication what we would all, yeah, of American.
Christian But that's and you really mentioned that.
You had mentioned that at the beginning, Damien, and it was one of the things that kind of stuck my miny a little about how Christianity, especially in America is a business, or in the US, I should say, is a business. But I think I think that's kind of true of almost anything in the US anymore. I think, you know, even the US itself is kind of just leaning towards running more like a business. But where there are people who want to think, there are you know,
people who are are willing to sallet. And uh, with that being said, we have a merch store at tiny dot c c slash merch a c A, so don't forget to check that out and click