Posted by:
caffiend
(
)
Date: July 06, 2019 09:33PM
Not having researched this, that is my understanding of how televangelists work: Get people to regular, committed if possible, with modest donations. Automatic bank account deductions, credit/debit charges, etc. or fix them up with a supply of envelopes. Over time, send them religious trinkets (prayer cloths, jewelry, display knicknacks).
Just keep the money coming in, and provide psychological assurance that they are invested in the work. Out of all these small donors, a few big ones will emerge, maybe people with estates--so much the richer!
Back in the 1980s, I was doing USPS truck deliveries on Commonwealth Avenue in the Boston University area. I had a drop of 4 or 5 "trays" of letters, each three feet long, with letters arrayed vertically on their bottom edge--a few hundred letters per tray. The stop was for some religious organization, but it was a kind of warehouse/office building, nothing church-like. I asked what the group was, and got a generic name (I just researched, it was "The United Christian Evangelistic Association."
I asked what church this was, and a young white woman just said, "a church." I inquired about their doctrine, services, etc. and she was very evasive, and just said it was "preachin.'" Couldn't get much out of her.
I later found out that this was "Rev. Ike's" group, one of the most brazen of prosperity preachers! Along with that info, somebody told me (paraphrase), "They keep a real close eye on the mail there. Lots of cash in those envelopes. Every so often, somebody is found with his pockets full of those envelopes."
Rev. Ike very consciously took his doctrine from New Thought (Christian Science, Unity, etc.) and Norman Vincent Peale. I've heard there are doctrinal connections between him an Oprah Winfrey, but I've never looked into it.