ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH OF TULSA UPDATE!

Those of you who read Chaotic Not Random while not drinking heavily will remember that on April 21 I posted about receiving a wonderful letter from St. Matthew's Church in Tulsa, which included a colorful prayer rug with Jesus' face on it. The letter instructed me to place the rug over my knees, pray for whatever I needed, and then mail the prayer rug back with a "seed gift." Not only would God answer my prayers, the letter promised, but St. Matthew's would send me a "A WONDERFUL, FREE, SPIRITUAL GIFT THAT WILL BE A BLESSING TO [ME] FOR A LIFETIME." (Click the links to see the first and second pages of the letter. Click here (link via Bruce) to see the prayer rug.)

So I mailed the prayer rug back along with my "seed gift" (one penny) and requests for $1,000,000,000.00 plus prayers for bloggers on my blogroll and regular commenters. Because I had followed all of the instructions, I sat back and waited for the blessings to roll in. I am disappointed to report that I still haven't received the $1,000,000,000.00, although on April 30 a nice lady at my company came around and handed me a check for... substantially less. Maybe I should have sent a shinier penny.

Imagine my exitement, however, when last Friday I received my wonderful, free, spiritual gift -- a 224-page "book" addressed to "Allgore Trout" titled The Seed Principle: God's Divine Seed Principle That Governs Our Success and Prosperity. Those of you with skulls filled with something other than leftover turkey dressing will not be surprised to learn that "God's Divine Seed Principle" is -- remember, I am condensing 224 pages of complex biblical exegesis here -- "Get rich by sending money to St. Matthew's Church." St. Matthew's Church is not going to invest your money for you, of course; they need the money to help the poor and stuff. God will provide you with riches as a reward for sowing your seed gift in the fertile soil of St. Matthew's Church. Thus you should worship God not as Creator, not as Father, not as Savior, but as Guaranteed Investment Plan.

I do not have the wit or words to describe how fully wrong The Seed Principle is. I can say it is less a book than a maddening jumble of articles randomly strewn with boldface type and Bible verses either willfully mistranslated or taken wildly out of context; photos of haystacks, farmers tilling their fields, farmers gathering the harvest, Barry Bonds, happy married people, and famous philanthropists; bad drawings of people praying; fabricated testimonials from nonexistent people who received miraculous gifts of money, businesses, cars and trucks, homes, and healing after sending money to St. Matthew's; and constant reminders to return the postcard on the back to receive a "Biblical Seed Harvest Plan." One page shows a cartoon of a man sowing seeds while the rows already sown sprout dollar signs. Another page reads, "God is blessing people with with Jobs, Raises in Pay, Savings Accounts, Lines of Credit, Credit Cards, More Money in Their Pockets, and other benefits as they faithfully sow seeds of faith."

I looked very carefully, but I could not find the verse where Paul warns, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10a). I also could not find the story in which Jesus says, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Thanks to Bruce, who found this fascinating article, I recently learned that St. Matthew's Church is not actually based in Tulsa, except in the sense that they maintain a post office box there. According to the article, St. Matthew's Church is actually located in the Los Angeles mansion of the Rev. James Eugene Ewing, a one-time traveling tent-revival preacher. The most hair-raising passage in the article:

The [direct mail] approach reaped Ewing and his organization a gross income of more than $100 million since 1993, including $26 million in 1999, the last year Saint Matthew's made its tax records public. And while much of the money is spent on postage and salaries, Ewing's company receives nonprofit status and pays no federal taxes.

One. Hundred. Million. Dollars. Well, nobody ever went broke betting on gullibility. Read the full article and learn about Ewing's targeting of the poor and desperate, his struggles with the IRS, his association with Oral Roberts and other evangelists, his "$2.2 million, 6400-square-foot home above Beverly Hills," and his exotic and classic car collection.

Anyway, I sent back the postcard, for which I will receive a Biblical Seed Harvest Plan (read: coupon book for monthly contributions to subsidize James Ewing's Indonesian hooker habit) and a beautiful prayer coin. St. Matthew's also promished to "stand by [me] with encouraging testimonies, prayer and a letter to [me], three times each month, to help [me] each step of the way." I've reasoned that all of this crap costs these guys money, and it's a good thing to take even small bits of money out of the pockets of people like this. Want to help out? Write to St. Matthew's Churches, c/o Biblical Seed Harvest Plan, PO Box 22148, Tulsa OK 74121, and ask for a Harvest Plan.

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/16/2004 07:49:00 PM