Hello, viewers, this is the nonprofits, but we are not making a
profit, not like your Christian church anyway. Do you know where your tithe
is going? How do you even track all the money that you are pouring
into your congregation or do you at all? You may want to start after
hearing this segment, because Kelly Laughlin is with us and he is going to
fill us in on how Christian leaders may very well embezzel over eighty billion in
twenty twenty four. Kelly, how do we arrive at such an astronomical number?
Well, Jimmy, that figure comes from the Center for the Study of
Global Christianity, part of the Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. It's a religious organization,
so this isn't an anti religion group, but they say that the churches
will embezzle some three hundred and ninety billion dollars annually by twenty fifty. Now.
The Trinity Foundation, which is another religious group that's a watchdog group of
other religious organizations, attributes those financial losses to skimming from our offering plates,
diverting mission donations to personal expense accounts, and even international cash mouddeling, which
they actually have cases of. While it isn't always easy to track how these
statistics on crime that isn't caught. These Christian researchers say they have come up
with a good formula to figure it out. And what they've done is they've
taken the amount of money that was generated by the economy and figured out the
percentage of fraud from that, and then use that percentage to the amount of
money brought in by churches. So it seems like a pretty good formula,
and they are warning people within their faith to be wary of their church leaders.
Excellent point. And I like that you mentioned that the Christians doing this
research and watchdogging, or excuse me, the people doing this research and watchdogging
are in fact Christian. Yes, because you might think, well, the
bias would typically swing in the other direction, right, But I think that
this is a perfect example of Christians needing to be concerned about where their money
is going. This is not our job. Heck, I wouldn't mind if
they stole from each other. To be honest with you, I'd like to
see the whole system come crashing down. But as a person with their button
the pews every week, you might want to be concerned asking the questions about,
hey, where is that actually going? Blaydon, I want to ask
you, do you think that there's a double standard between religious organizations the way
that the account thing is done, and humanist organizations, let's say, or
non religious organizations. How do you reconcile the differences between how they account for
their funds. I think the fact that churches don't have to file any financial
disclosures with IRS is already insane. Like that alone makes it almost impossible to
even quantify how much they actually take from people. And then the research in
this article shows that Christians all over the world will give about one point three
trillion trillion dollars to Christian causes just in twenty twenty four. So imagine if
we had that kind of money taken towards a humanist effort, like we could
change the fucking world with that, you know what I mean, Like we
would do so much with that. And I mean this, we're human.
So even if it is a humanist effort going towards this, there's going to
be some fraud. People are people's let's be honest. But I mean you
have to think about that number is eighty six billion with a B That is
lost. So I feel like, can we just regulate these people? Can
we get some kind of governmental infrastructure to come in and just say, hey,
guys, where'd that money go? Like it's that so hard? Yeah,
And that's a good point. I mean, can we bring in some
oversight? Right? But how much is too much? What would be fair?
And Cynthia, I want to turn to you and ask you, you
know, how much transparency should actually be required to the fullest. It's church,
I mean, like, these are the people's that's the leaders of these
people's immortal soul. You go to church every week in order for you to
sit your butt in a pew and listen to somebody tell you about what Jesus
did and why you should do it too, and if you don't, you're
going to hell or purgatory if you're Catholic. So it's absolutely pertinent in my
opinion that there should be more transparency in how people are being told about how
their money is being spent. I mean, like, I think that one
of the things that the article actually even points out that it's not just mega
churches that's doing this. We're still having issues even with smaller dioceses, smaller
churches that are still going to be caught in the fray of embezzling. And
man, when you even talked about blatant that one point three trillion dollar of
money figure that's going to like you know, Christian organizations and and also you
know other causes. I'm my dang, that's a down payment on reparations.
But I digress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally totally, yeah,
yeah, totally totally. We will get that going. But yeah, but
like but seriously, it's it's just so sobering when you actually just think about
like how the how churches and of themselves can be able to you know,
take the money, put it in their coffers and do whatever they want to
do with that with it without even telling the I R S. That's insane.
I mean, like we even covered like how the Morgan Church has a
multi billion dollar war chest that is within their ranks, even though they have
been accused of all types of heinous acts by their by their eldership, their
leadership and and the like. Especially when I even think about like how they
are still telling and going into poor country and telling people that they need to
give and they need to tie even when they don't have it, and because
people feel that, oh, this is my immortal soul. You know,
Jesus will reward me and my afterlife blah blah blah, you know, twelve
gates to the city type stuff. Then I'm going to yeah, exactly,
pie in the sky until you die. You're right, yep. And and
it's it's so egretous. It's such a loud high before you die is a
big fat lie, Okay, And I gosh, and I just I really
just wish that this whole like protection that the United States government gives to faith
based organizations, which is completely go away because if you are a five oh
one C three that is secular in orient and an orientation, you're not going
to get that protection. It's just faith based organizations because Jesus said absolutely,
and we see that. Uh. You know, even in our own organization,
we are five to one seed three nonprofit and we stick to the rules
pretty thoroughly. While we also know that there are there's plenty of political preaching
and ideology emanating from many pulpits across this country trying to sway voters, if
you will, either left or right, probably not left too often, but
in any case, you know, why is it that the churches. Why
is it that Christian or religious organizations in general are just kind of hands off.
I think that for somebody that wants to control societies to such such extremes,
that they should have the equal extremes placed on them when it comes to
watchdogging. You know, there's some other things that I wanted to add on.
Y Citia you you brought up a great points about how money is being
used. Let's not forget you know, the Catholic Church has a fund that
is set aside to defend perpetrators of sexual assault or those that are accused or
alleged. Why should any organization have a pot of money that is set aside
to defend child molesters. It is an awful thing to think about, and
it really doesn't compute and if it had the kind of oversight that we are
we're looking for, if these organizations did, they might not even need something
like that, and they can actually do some good. You know, we
saw, excuse me, after Notre Dame burned down, how much money was
raised within a matter of twenty four hours. We couldn't get that to help
the poor. But this is an organization that tells you, well, Jesus
said, give all your things away. We got to help the poor.
No, they just want Jesus or excuse me, they just want you to
give your things to Jesus. But they'll collect it for them, and don't
worry about where the money goes. You know, we'll take good care of
it. I think that there is a pretty pervasive nature to steal words from
Cynthia. You know, I know that you came into the show mentioning that
you think that the whuch as a pervasive nature. I think that the fact
they pay no taxes, They've got huge acres of land that are just being
used as grass beds. Essentially, there's not helping the economy. They're not
doing any good for anybody. You know, I wanted to kick it over
to Kelly and Blatant. You know, what are some of the ways that
you think the nature of religious institutions can be pervasive? Blatant, you want
to go first? Sure. I think one of the most glaring and obvious
ways that is pervasive is again looking at our politics. How many elected officials
come in just literally their first thing is to say, well, I'm a
good Christian man and I follow the Bible and that literally brings in people because
people are so damn indoctrinated. That's literally all you have to say is I'm
a Christian. So I mean, like, how many has there ever been
a non Christian president? No? No, no, So I mean that
is the pervasive nature of this entire system, that it gets into everything because
it already is in everything, and the people that are running the system are
part of this exact same thing. So of course it's going to be.
It's not even pervasive, is just what is because you're not getting into it.
It already is there. Yeah, And I think one of the big
problems there is that the people who are in this system all think that everybody
else in the system is just on the up and up just like they are.
Right, because there are good people within that system, you know,
I'm not going to deny that, but those good people aren't stopping the bad
people because they're under the assumption that those bad people are good people too.
Otherwise, why would they be working at the church. Of Course they're good
people. They're with the church, of course they're good people. And that's
a huge problem. That's a huge problem. Yeah, there is this idea
that you can say the simple buzzwords and you have checked boxes and you're one
of the good guys. And I don't know how that overpowers or overshadows the
many atrocity that come out of these same organizations. And I just, you
know, I guess I want to kind of pick your brains a little bit.
You know, what do you think it is about the American psyche about
and that is consistent I think across all races in the country. I mean,
we've in our recording tonight talked about a few racial issues, and it's
easy to point to the divides. But what I see as a trend,
and ironically so because of the divides that exist within Christianity, is that,
you know, regardless of what your ethnic background is, as long as someone
says a right Jesus, Czech Church, Czech Bible check, they're one of
the good guys, and maybe we should support that person. I don't know
how do our panelists tonight feel like we get to that point? Cynthia,
any thoughts on that? You know, I believe it just goes back to
how we as a society is overwhelmingly Christian, and especially in the black community,
is super uber Christian, and along with that comes with indoctrination. Even
if they're not necessarily like Christian, you still have an overwhelming point overwhelming popular
populus. Rather that is still theist. And when you and I'm sorry theists,
I'm just gonna tell you my opinion, but when you actually put a
living sky Daddy in your life and instead of instead of like looking past that
and looking within yourself and just looking at human beings that's who they are,
you devoid yourself from critical thinking and skepticism. You know, as you just
said, Jimmy, okay, I got the church check. You got my
pastor check in. My pastor said check. You know, and if pastor
said, dad, I mean it's right. You know what I'm saying,
And I mean like, and that's something that we see a lot in in
place in people who happen to be especially i would say, like in more
charismatic evangelical settings, they are super under that thumb of pastor said is right
because Jesus said it's right, and man of God hears from Jesus, and
therefore there go I you know, And I'm glad that at least that we
have a trend of people actually kind of falling away from the church, and
we do have a rise of the nons right, the irreligious, and even
having like more people who happen to be more agnostic and atheistic in their point
of views, because at least if they start to look at the religion in
of itself and how it can be more so of a fetter of a bond,
especially on the mind, than they can kind of cast those things away
and start to think for themselves and not necessarily be pulled in per se to
being able to go along with the norm and do things like throw away on
your day on money, gentlemen, any comments on that go ahead. I
was afraid you were going to say that one of the things that I did,
Well, that's okay, I mean, I've got a question. No,
no, okay, okay. I was gonna see one of the things
that we didn't bring up. Well, we did kind of bring it up,
but I wanted I got it in my notes, so I wanted to
mention it that the Trinity Foundation did give a list of solutions for the problem,
and they included things like just normal things like routine audits, transparency,
more oversight of the people who are in control of the church funds, maybe
getting insurance to cover fraud, and the big one actually taking actions when there
are suspicions of illegal activity instead of thinking, oh, this person's on the
up and up, so this just must be a mistake in the books,
probably just a mistaken arithmetic. Maybe actually look into it, and I mean,
that's that's I think is really really important. These are things that any
any other nonprofit has to do. For the most part, we have we
have to do that at the ACA. We have to have transparency, we
have to have oversite, we have to have routine audits. This is the
toughest stuff that nonprofits do, and I don't understand why the church is able
to get away without doing these things. Yeah, you know, Blaytant,
I wanted to reflect on something you mentioned and that was, excuse me,
the usual suspects that this is not a case of the usual suspects, is
it. When I think of eighty six billion dollars going missing, I think
of a pope in a bulletproof car or on a golden throne, you know,
I think of a bunch of men in really expensive garb that probably came
from all over the world, you know, kind of just sniveling with each
other. Haha, we did it again. But that's not the case,
is it. What do you think now, No, it's not our usual
suspects. It's not those Rick Flair preachers, you know, the stylin profile
and limousine riding, jet flying. It's not those guys. That's who you
think it would be. But no, it's the people that actually handle the
finances in these small churches and make a churches, whatever size the church.
It's the people that have their hands and all of this stuff. People that
understand the system, the trustees, the first lady, people that just do
the day to day operations. These are the people that know all the intricacies
of the church. And again without any actual oversight, it's never going to
stop. So like we keep saying, tie that your own risk, and
it's symbolic anyway. It works just like prayer. It makes you feel like
you've done something without actually doing anything. So yeah, and you know,
on that note, as we wrap it up, I just want to go
across the paddle with all this money that's being taken place, and this can
be a fun one or excuse me, being taken this could be a fun
one if you'd like. I want to start with blatant and then work towards
Kelly, I what is the number one thing that the church owes its congregation
after stealing all this money from them? What do you think as much as
minorities, black people in particular have given to the church. I feel like,
just like Cynthia said, they can start our reparations by themselves. Great
point, Cynthia, what are your thoughts on that? Reparations and a trip
to six Flags? Like every church? Well yeah, I mean like in
your respective area. You know, some amusement park. All churches you need
to take them in and the children too. You need to do it.
And we want lunch, dinner, travel, and we also want to stay
in sweets you can afford. If they're taking children, I want chaperones.
Yeah, yes, yes, of course, of course. No, don't
say the children go along. I'm not leaving my kids with the screw that.
No, I'm going with them. Kelly, what do you think what
does the church owe us? I mean I have donated to church before when
I was under their under their influence. What do you think you think they
owe us the money they took our money, Give me the money back,
or at least give us the receipts for where you are going to spend the
money in the future. Right, start making that money back, make it
do what you have to do to make that money back, and actually spend
it on the things that you were supposed to spend it on them. I
think that is the best way to pay it. Pay it back, you
know. I think you know what the church, The Church ows us evidence
that what we were given to is a real thing. I want to I
want Jesus to be standing up there like, hey, I appreciate y'all good
stuff. That's what they owe us, because I think throughout my entire from
age seven to like fifteen, they were working on the chapel or something,
and I'm like, what are they going to fix this thing? You know,
I watch everybody put their hands in the jar and drop off money every
week for years, and this thing was still beating up. So I don't
know, I don't know what that money was being skimmed. Maybe that's why
it took so long. You never know exactly. Listen, let me just
say really quick, we ain't gonna talk about and blaytant. You can co
sign on this. How long Black Church has been send money for the building
fund. May. We got to get that ball afixed. Yeah, come
on Wednesday, we gotta get that ball afixed. Great, it is still
cold, sir, on a coat in service. When the ball are going
to be fixed? Sir? Twenty years later, twenty years later. A
great discussion tonight, very lively at the end. I love ending the show
that way, viewers. We've talked about a lot of things tonight. We've
talked about some of the different segments that we recorded tonight that aren't part of
this one.