It is safe to say $60 million is a lot of money. A lot of good, charitable things can be done with a sum of money this large. Creflo Dollar, popular televangelist and pastor of the mega-church World Changers Church International in Atlanta, recently started a donation campaign to purchase a new private jet for that low sum.
Dollar is seeking the Gulfstream G650 to replace his old private jet that wrecked after sliding off a runway in London. The G650 is a beautiful private jet. It is heralded as the fastest and overall best private jet that can be purchased by a civilian. This is the type of aircraft billionaires can afford to buy. Why does a pastor need the most luxurious piece of private aviation that money can buy?
A brand new private jet can cost anywhere from $4 million to $10 million. Dollar has essentially wrecked his Hyundai and is now asking for the Lamborghini of jet planes. To pay for his new luxurious ride, he wants 200,000 people to donate at least $300. This does not include church members’ existing tithes and offering. Dollar’s campaign is completely ludicrous. I am not the only one who thinks so; Dollar received immediate backlash and has since removed the donation page and promotional video from his website.
Creflo Dollar is known for prosperity preaching. This type of preaching primarily focuses on the goodness and blessings of God; a deceptive pastor primarily spins these blessings into a monetary value. For example, a pastor may say you need to give $500 to receive a 100 fold blessing. Or, he’ll say you cannot receive blessings until you have given a certain amount to the church. Dollar has been found guilty of this preaching — a theology that makes God seem like a wishing well.
Prosperity encompasses more than money; it is family, health, success and overall good fortune. Some pastors take the Bible out of context and twist the words to convey their own message. Not only is this wrong, but it confuses and misguides new Christians. To obtain anything tangible in life, work and effort must be put forward in conjunction with personal faith and belief. Who is truly benefiting from this prosperity gospel? From the looks of it, dishonest pastors appear to be the ones prospering.
Deceptive prosperity preaching is borderline criminal. It swindles poor people out of their hard earned money, while the pastor gets rich. Dollar owns several multi-million dollar homes, two Rolls Royces and is an estimated net worth of $27 million. He is bold enough to ask his congregation and the world at large to support his lavish lifestyle by asking for a $65 million jet. There is a distinct difference between giving to the church to further ministry and Dollar’s proposed jet campaign. This is the most obvious misappropriation of clerical donation I have ever seen. Dollar is definitely living up to his last name. The pastor’s jet campaign should have caused his followers to analyze the gospel and look deeper into what is being preached to them.
