The term is specifically used today for misappropriation of donation monies. A recent study by the Princeton Theological Seminary estimated that over $62 billion USA dollars are stolen from churches, para churches and secular organizations all over the world. These donations by “Christian” believers alone are lost through a web of money-laundering, embezzlement, and fraud.
Often a church or para-church will set up an arms-length secular charity that will collect donations for “community care” programs like homelessness, If the private business is also offering pastoral care and spiritual guidance to their customers, you know that a para-church is involved. Donated funds can disappear anywhere – private purchases, political donations, bribery schemes, the possibilities are endless. While making donors feel all warm and fuzzy about their charitable donations that are supposed to support local support services and global relief initiatives, the monies collected are rarely accounted for properly.
According to the data collected by my research assistant Claire Ayigh, the collection plate is most frequently tipped into pockets that “support the personal luxury, private business ventures and lifestyle inflation of the internal perpetrators, as well as complex cover-ups to hide the thefts from auditors.” If there is a religious component involved, these “scam churches or institutional ‘pulpit predators’ exploit the mercy, empathy, and deep faith of their parishioners by weaponizing sacred concepts to extract wealth, compliance and unquestioning devotion.”
The recent case uncovered by the police in an operation called Project Great One, led to fraud charges against the pastor of the Vaughan/Woodbridge branch of The Miracle Arena for All Nations (MAFAN) whose leader, (and Honorary Doctor of Divinity) Prophet Kofi Danso, stated that Pastor Issac Oppong has now been dismissed from the para-church.
In a time of great financial insecurity, societal upheaval, and global chaos, it becomes much easier to prey on the kindness of a community. to quote the Hunger Games President Snow, “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear.” And like fear it can paralyze us. Pierce Brown, wrote in his science fiction series the Red Rising Saga, “Hope is an opiate, not a plan.”
We need a really, really good plan to get safely out of this current age of madness. So let’s be very careful about where we put our energies and our empathies and our donations for community care and global relief. The scam artists smell blood in the water and they are circling.
It’s time to get our feet back on solid ground. The way I see it.
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NOTE: Prophet Kofi Danso’s honorary doctoral degree in divinity was awarded by the Canadian Christian Theological Seminary in Calgary, Alberta.