Monday, February 04, 2008

It's Monday morning and I'm starting my week on a note of encouragement. It is refreshing to see someone take a stand for accountability in the Church, and I'd like to thank Bernie Dehler publicly for his courage and commitment. For an eye-opening article on Hank Hanegraaff and the question of accountability (or lack of it), take a look at FreeGoodNews.com:

2008 Christian Executive Pay: ECFA (Part 4 of 10)
by Bernie Dehler

"I recently published the 2008 salary survey for the biggest 20 (self-described) Christian ministries (click here to see). In this article I want to share some of my insight regarding ECFA (The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability), which is supposed to be an organization which encourages good fiscal practice amongst Evangelical Christian ministries.

A couple of weeks ago I spoke with Ken Behr, the President of ECFA. I expressed my great dissatisfaction with his group's performance, especially the fact that they don’t require that a member organization's Form 990 (tax return) be completely filled-out. The example I refer to is Hank Hanegraaff’s “Bible Answer Man” ministry (I previously wrote about this; click
here to read).

Hank put his wife Kathy in a significant position with a high salary, but when the form asks for “How many hours worked per week?” they simply put in “as needed.” That is the same as writing nothing." (Full Story available at
http://www.freegoodnews.com/2008/02/2008-christian.html)


2 Comments:

Blogger JohnD said...

Say, that IS a positive note... LOL

Actually it is sad. On another board I am in generally good standing with someone solicited the board members in a way that got past the screeners alleging the loss of job and home.

The initial response is to believe and pity them and pray and try to figure out how you can help. But as certain factors began to come clear (like the way the poster posted to get around screeners, and the lack of other posts like in the clearly marked prayer request section...) this was yet another shyster.

This was my blog commentary:

Shyster alert
...

For legitimate needs I feel compelled to pray. I am in no position to do otherwise. But for those who foolishly believe they can cry poor mouth and sucker people into pity parties or fraud I say BEWARE.

God does not take kindly to those who make true giving difficult or impossible because of the fraud which must be waded through.

This includes sign-toting beggars on the street who only want a buzz or are deathly afraid of work... and those organizations who claim to feed the children (after their 90% commission is taken off the top). God has reserved a place in hottest hell for those who steal not from the truly needy people.

That is in fact who they are stealing from. By making people hesitate for a second to help another because the fraud, those who commit fraud have stolen from the needy and not those who "have."


I would also add that this goes double for religious hucksters defrauding the truth we all desperately need.

9:53 AM  
Blogger Fred said...

It's a sad day again when the board of directors won't put the needs of the donors in front of theirs. We need to pray that God will put someone in charge of CRI who is Theologically sound, won't treat the donations like it's their own property, and will bring CRI and BAM up to par again.

1:14 AM  

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