Ministries program pitched Scripture
The Tampa Tribune, March 16, 1999
By Michael Fechter
TAMPA - A biblical best of both worlds helped Greater Ministries thrive.
The pitch begins with Scripture and combines altruism with personal gain. A kind of prosperity theology.
For better than five years, Greater Ministries International used Luke 6:38 as the cornerstone of its appeal to investors.
``Give and it shall be given to you'' in equal amount, the verse reads.
That's what Greater Ministries claimed it did.
Investments in offshore trades and precious metal mining were so successful, Greater Ministries said, that it could afford to underwrite global missionary and charity work while doubling a person's money at the same time.
Use that money to spread the gospel, group leaders such as Gerald Payne and Don Hall urged during repeated gatherings at hotel ballrooms throughout the country.
A series of state enforcement actions and financial setbacks has slowed the program since last summer. Federal prosecutors say they ended it Friday when they indicted Payne, his wife Betty Payne, Hall, David Whitfield, James Chambers, Andrew John Krishak and Patrick Talbert.
Their 20-count conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering indictment charges that the investments were minimal at best. The program was a fraud that took new investor money to pay other investors while leaders took 5 percent commissions, according to prosecutors.
What's described is known as an affinity fraud, a scam that uses religious beliefs as a central selling point. Securities watchdogs say they are among the toughest to crack.
``They are the more pitiful ones because the affinity connection is an indication of trust,'' said Philip Feigin, executive director of the North American Securities Administrators Association. ``Trust is higher among those people and that's why the fraud is successful. The betrayal is that much greater.''
One minister who has followed the program and warned Christians about it on a newsletter posted on his Web page says Greater's financial house is built on a twisted theological foundation.
``The context of Luke 6:38 talks about giving gifts to the poor, without expecting anything in return,'' said Pastor Ovid Need Jr. of Linden Baptist Church in Linden, Ind. ``They've wrested that passage from its context and made it say something it does not say.''
Fred Stubbs, a minister and leader of Brandon's Bay Life Church, agreed. The verse in question ``has nothing to do with get-rich-quick schemes.'' The meaning behind the line is that whatever one gives, be it money, love, or time, will be returned as a spiritual reward, he said. ``It will come back to you when you have the right heart,'' he said. It has nothing to do with investing.
Need said he first heard about Greater's program when a fellow minister tried to get him involved in it. Then he witnessed a Greater presentation and brought home a videotape in which Talbert claims the ministry owned 200 gold mines and was producing $1 billion per year.
Atlanta-area resident Gordon Wadsworth was familiar with the Luke passage through his own religious study and volunteer prison ministry work.
He never saw a chance at profit in it before a friend solicited him into the Greater Ministries program.
``We give all the time [to missionaries] and we don't expect to get anything back,'' he said. The missionaries often write personal letters back detailing their work, he said.
``That is our reward.''
But he was open to the financial interpretation when the friend showed him.
``Since they were using the Bible and quoting this, I thought well, maybe.''
The vast majority of religious organizations are dedicated to positive social values, but the faith and trust involved makes followers more vulnerable, said Danny L. Jorgensen, a University of South Florida religious studies professor.
``It is real ripe territory for people who are charlatans,'' he said. ``They move in among the sheep as wolves and take advantage of them.''
Greater's leaders said that the group is being persecuted by the government. Religious groups and cults have long used this as a rallying tool, Jorgensen said.
There's been just enough genuine government bias and abuse to make it plausible, he said, citing the siege at Waco, Texas, in 1993 as a ``gross abuse of government power.'' A century ago the Mormons were similarly mistreated.
Even with no real persecution, it's useful, Jorgensen said, to ``conjure up ... a them-against-us'' mentality to bind the group together and allow the leaders to claim any legal action is government persecution.
Some Greater activists have antitax and ``sovereign citizen'' beliefs that they say make them free from government jurisdiction. Last year, the group began selling property and citizenship in ``Greater Land,'' a church-run domain to be started on a Bahamian island or off the coast of Liberia.
Payne and Hall continued to blame the government for their troubles, particularly after monthly payments to investors stopped shortly after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Colorado regulators shut down Boulder-based Best Bank for insolvency last summer.
Greater says the government stole $20 million in uninsured deposits.
It also claims government agents stole $3.5 million in cash during a 1996 robbery of Greater Ministries headquarters. At Ministries meetings and during a sworn deposition in Ohio last year, Payne blamed the IRS for the break-in .
Greater Ministries issued a flier last fall offering a $50,000 reward for information about the robbery that named the IRS, FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Supporters pushed the story Friday, telling some investors that FBI agents raided Greater Ministries' Sulphur Springs headquarters, arresting people and seizing cash as the group prepared to resume its payments.
