Associated Press
The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.
AP / File
Televangelists Gloria and Kenneth Copeland lay hands on Oral Roberts, 85, in 2003. The modern prosperity movement can be traced to Mr. Roberts.
And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.
Only the blessings didn't come. Ms. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.
"I wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he was doing with them," she said. "I'm angry and bitter about it. Right now, I don't watch anyone on TV hardly."
All three of the groups Ms. Fleenor supported are among six major Christian television ministries under scrutiny by a senator who is asking questions about the evangelists' lavish spending and possible abuses of their tax-exempt status.
The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles -- the "Gospel of Prosperity," or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.
The ministries under investigation preach the prosperity gospel to varying degrees.
Proponents call it a biblically sound message of hope. Others say it is a distortion that makes evangelists rich and preys on the vulnerable. They say it has evolved from "it's all right to make money" to it's all right for the pastor to drive a Bentley.
"More and more people are desperate and grasping at straws and want something that will alleviate their pain or financial crisis," said Michael Palmer, the dean of the divinity school at Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson. "It's a growing problem."
The modern-day prosperity movement can largely be traced back to evangelist Oral Roberts' teachings. His disciples have spread his theology and vocabulary (Mr. Roberts and other evangelists, such as Ms. Meyer, call their donors "partners.") Several popular prosperity preachers, including some under investigation, have served on the Oral Roberts University board.
Mr. Grassley is asking the ministries for financial records on salaries, spending practices, private jets and other perks. The investigation, coupled with a financial scandal at ORU that forced out Mr. Roberts' son and heir, Richard, has some wondering whether the prosperity gospel is facing a day of reckoning.
Though few expect the movement to disappear, the scrutiny could force greater financial transparency and oversight in a movement known for secrecy.
Most scholars trace the origins of prosperity theology to E.W. Kenyon, an evangelical pastor from the first half of the 20th century.
But it wasn't until the postwar era -- and a pair of evangelists from Tulsa, Okla. -- that "health and wealth" theology became a fixture in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.
Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin -- and later, Kenneth Copeland -- trained tens of thousands of evangelists with a message that resonated with an emerging middle class, said David Edwin Harrell Jr., a Roberts biographer. Mr. Copeland is among those being investigated.
"What Oral did was develop a theology that made it OK to prosper," Mr. Harrell said. "He let Pentecostals be faithful to the old-time truths their grandparents embraced and be part of the modern world, where they could have good jobs and make money."
Prosperity preachers say God's blessings extend to health, relationships and being well-off enough to help others.
They have Bible verses at the ready to make their case. One oft-cited verse, in Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, reads: "Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich."
Critics acknowledge the idea that God wants to bless his followers has a biblical basis, but say prosperity preachers take verses out of context.
