"Where Christ is preached people happily part with their hard earned bucks".
Pray what is this money used for, and do the people parting with their hard earned Bucks (Americanism!) know

Kipp

The hard earned bucks should be used for furthering the gospel message and helping the poor. If you have a problem with that argue with God and not me. Funny how we never scrutinzse the earth worshippers in their luxurious lifestyles. I am sure Mr Gore and his UN buddies catch buses everywhere they go! Some of Mr Matheson's ACTU mates are not all that moderate either in their lifestyles. My main point is that if people want to give all they have to a cause they believe fully in what is that to you or me. If people want to give the ACTU all they have what is that to you or me or to the climate change scaremongers.

The Assembly of God preach division politics which is why I was so happy to see their party Family First fail to win a seat in the recent election. The progressive Greens on the other hand are quite likely to pick up the balance of power in the Senate, a good result all round in my opinion.

"The hard earned bucks should be used for furthering the gospel message and helping the poor."

Hmm... I guess with a bit of creative embroidery you could claim that the $10 million corporate jet falls under the "furthering the gospel" bit.

And buying five of them must make Copeland be able to spread five times as much gospel righr?
I suppose you can probably chalk that $107,000 silver mercedes into that category as well.

As for the marble topped toilet... that one's a toughie. Erm... Hmm... Uh... I'll have to get back to you on that one.

As for accountability, pfft. Why, those people asking questions about these multimillionaire christians must just be dirty liberals, even if they're a minister. After all, they're conservative and are cool with jesus, so they must be good people.

When I was young, people criticised church for being boring. Now the church is criticised for being too interesting.

There’s preaching that people want to hear, and it costs money to build auditoriums or hire stadia to have a gathering. There’s music that people want to listen to in their homes, and they’ll pay money to have the CDs produced.

Let’s compare the pentecostals in Australia with something like the Australian Football League, which is also supposedly community based, existing for, and supported by, ordinary people. Both are popular, with pentecostals perhaps putting more bums on seats on any given weekend. The AFL spins enormous amounts of money, but don’t get near the same criticism from the likes of Alan Matheson. Ordinary common sense recognises it takes money to make the wheels turn.

As Gary Ablett noted to the press recently, “Tall poppy syndrome is alive and well here in Australia.”

For people inflicted by tall poppy syndrome, here’s a choice phrase, “Now under investigation”. I’ll explain how they use it. I am jealous of Alan Matheson. I insist to the fraud squad that they should investigate him. They say, ‘why should we bother?’ I say, ‘because he’s a crook’. If I say it often enough, they’ll say, just to get me of their back, ‘Okay, we’ll look into it’. Now I can say to everyone, ‘Alan Matheson is now under investigation by the fraud squad.

Although many believe that Gary Ablett the wearer of Number 5 was God the Geelong Football Club doesn't enjoy tax free status like other religious institutions do.