Popular TV preachers

St. Louis Post-Dispatch/November 18, 2003

Note: This article has been republished with the permission
of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Joyce Meyer is one of America's best-known prosperity-gospel TV ministers - preachers who teach that personal wealth can be attained through a strong faith in God and a strict adherence to the Bible.

Following is an alphabetical list of a new wave of popular word-faith ministers who have used television to build large followings:

Juanita Bynum

Headquarters: Waycross, Ga.

Reach: Her program, "Weapons of Power," is seen worldwide on TBN; she holds conferences throughout the United States.

Wealth: No information available.

In the news: In April, Bynum married Thomas Wesley Weeks III in the palatial Regent Wall Street Hotel in New York City. The ceremony featured a wedding party of 80, a platinum-colored satin bridal gown with a bodice covered in Swarovski crystals and a 7.76-carat diamond ring.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Headquarters: Fort Worth, Texas

Reach: Ministry Web site says its TV show, "Believer's Voice of Victory," is seen by more than 76 million households on nearly 700 U.S. stations. Show also airs on about 135 international stations.

Wealth: A ministry official estimates the ministry's annual revenue at $70 million.

In the news: In June, the Copelands joined four other TV preachers who gathered around Oral Roberts, 85, considered the grandfather of the prosperity gospel, to pray for healing the failing founder of the university that bears his name.

Jan and Paul Crouch

Headquarters: Costa Mesa, Calif.

Reach: The Crouches are owners of Trinity Broadcast Network, the world's largest Christian TV network. TBN reaches millions of viewers on more than 5,000 TV stations and 33 international satellites around the world.

Wealth: The Crouches and their son Paul Crouch Jr. said they earned a total of $855,000 last year. TBN's annual income exceeds $100 million a year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The ministry provides the Crouches a $10 million, 80-acre, eight-home ranch near Dallas and two Land Rovers that the Crouches drive. In 2001, the couple bought a $5 million oceanfront estate in Newport Beach, Calif.

In the news: The ministry recently purchased the Nashville, Tenn., home and estate of the late country music performer Conway Twitty and opened Trinity Music City USA as a tourist attraction there.

Creflo Dollar

Headquarters: College Park, Ga.

Reach: Dollar's "Changing Your World" TV program on TBN reaches 150 countries.

Wealth: The ministry's income is unavailable, but newspaper accounts say the ministry paid $18 million in cash for his new 8,000-seat World Changers Church International on the southern edge of Atlanta. He drives a black Rolls-Royce and travels in a $5 million private jet.

In the news: Dollar's ministry became a focus of a court case involving boxer Evander Holyfield in 1999. The lawyer for Holyfield's ex-wife estimated that the fighter gave Dollar's ministry $7 million. Dollar refused to testify in the case.

Marilyn Hickey

Headquarters: Denver

Reach: Her TV show, "Today with Marilyn," on the TBN and Black Entertainment Television networks can be seen around the world. She has offices in England, South Africa and Australia, and is on the board of Oral Roberts University.

Wealth: Her ministry occupies a 260,000-square-foot former shopping mall in Denver. No information on ministry or her personal wealth is available.

In the news: She has been dubbed the "fairy godmother of the word-faith movement" and "the mistress of mail-order madness," by the Texas-based Christian Sentinel, a ministry that monitors what it calls "religious deception." Hickey got the "mistress" name for her use of trinkets - blessed cornmeal, cloths, seeds and coins - sent out to followers to urge them to send in money.

Benny Hinn

Headquarters: Grapevine, Texas

Reach: Hinn's "This is Your Day" program is seen throughout the United States and in nearly 200 foreign countries.

Wealth: The ministry took in $60 million in 2001. A news story earlier this year in the Colorado Springs Gazette said annual income now exceeds $90 million. Hinn told CNN in 1997 that he drew an annual salary of $500,000 to $1 million a year. He has a $3.5 million home in the Los Angeles area and drives an $80,000 Mercedes-Benz G500.

In the news: A "Dateline" segment on NBC examined five of Hinn's faith-healing "miracles," showing that none of the people was cured and that one woman with lung cancer died nine months later.

Rodney Howard-Browne

Headquarters: The River at Tampa Bay, Tampa, Fla.

Reach: His live broadcasts from his River at Tampa Bay Church stream online on his Internet site www.revival.com and can be seen worldwide.

Wealth: He and his wife, Adonica, oversee his $16 million church, which they founded in 1996. The couple live in a six-bedroom, four-bath lakefront home on Cory Lake in northwest Tampa. The home includes a dock, spa, pool and gazebo.

In the news: Howard-Browne has called himself the "bartender of holy laughter." Holy laughter was a controversial movement that swept evangelical circles in the mid-1990s. He would walk on stage laughing uncontrollably. The congregation would begin laughing. Howard-Browne would sweep his arm toward the crowd. People would appear "drunk on the Holy Spirit" and slide out of their chairs or dance in the aisles.

T.D. Jakes

Headquarters: Dallas

Reach: Jakes' "The Potter's House" TV program is seen throughout the world on TBN and Black Entertainment Television. His ministry boasts more than 26,000 members. A rally at the Georgia Dome in 1999 drew more than 100,000 people.

Wealth: He has mansions in Charleston, W.Va., and Dallas.

In the news: Called the best preacher in America by Time magazine in 2001.

Robert Tilton

Headquarters: Miami

Reach: He once ran his Farmers Branch Church in Dallas before scandal toppled it in the early 1990s. His show now airs on Black Entertainment Television and has a potential audience of 74 million homes.

Wealth: He is building a two-story home on a $1.39 million oceanfront lot on an island in Biscayne Bay off Miami Beach, and his ministry owns a 50-foot yacht. His ministry takes in about $24 million a year.

In the news: Tilton is rebounding after his ministry collapsed in scandal a decade ago amid news reports that prayer requests he said he personally prayed over were found in a trash bin after the money, food stamps and rings had been removed.

Randy and Paula White

Headquarters: The Without Walls International Church, Tampa, Fla.

Reach: The "Paula White Today" TV show can be seen worldwide on TBN and Black Entertainment Television. The ministry's Operation Explosion travels into public housing complexes with "rolling theatre-style pink trucks" to share Christianity in a Nickelodeon-type program for underprivileged children.

Wealth: The Whites live in a $2.1 million, 8,000-square-foot home facing Tampa Bay. Their ministry owns a jet airplane, a Cadillac Escalade and a Mercedes-Benz sedan.

In the news: Paula White calls Joyce Meyer her mentor; Meyer visited their church in September.

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