Not only are people typically required to give no less than ten percent of their pre-tax income to these churches, the "dominion theology" community  (and in particular the "name it and claim it" folks, a MAJOR part of the bigger dominionist churches) promote the idea of "seed faith offerings"--tithes above and beyond the "minimum" ten percent to "secure a blessing" and as a way of "naming and claiming it".

Many of these pastors even claim that God will increase any "seed faith offering" tenfold or more; in other words, God is being promoted in these churches as no less than a glorified Ponzi scheme.

The poor are especially targeted in these schemes--often, multigenerational poverty is claimed to be the result of "generational curses" that are the result of one's ancestors (up to seven generations back) having misbehaved somehow and "opened doorways to Satan" to cause the whole family to be "oppressed".  The cure always is for the family to pretty much devote all their free time to the church (including political dominionist groups, "spiritual warfare" groups, endless "deliverance services", and "Christian alternatives" to things like Scouting, etc.) and to give ever larger amounts of "seed faith offerings" to the church.  In fact, the story of the "widow's mite" is specifically abused in this promotion.

People who can ill afford to give any money to the church as is have literally spent themselves into poverty donating fully fifty percent or more of their pretax income to the church (I grew up in this very situation, and it was one of the few things my mother and father got into violent shouting matches about; my father disapproved, my mother literally accusing him of "denying God" and "trying to take away her blessing").

When the "seed faith offering" fails--as it inevitably does--the parishoner is encouraged to send even more of his money to the church and is often accused of not having "named and claimed" enough or of having some sort of "secret sin" or "having opened a doorway to Satan in your life"; more and more, the person is isolated from non-dominionist influence as practically everything not preapproved by the church is described as infested by demons and thus "opening doorways" (including such innocuous things as the peace symbol, Nike shoes, and Cabbage Patch Kids dolls).  This also includes control of information--thus people are sucked farther into a particularly spiritually abusive form of dominionism, whilst digging themselves ever deeper into financial holes.  

These same groups also promote the idea of marathon fasting (for periods of 21 to 40 days) as a way of "naming and claiming" things.  (These fasts are even more extreme than, say, Ramadan fasting--often people will consume nothing but water for 40 days or more.  Even diabetics (who are generally advised NEVER to fast or even skip meals)  and other persons for whom fasting is medically inadvisable are encouraged to do limited fasting--through the "cabbage soup diet" (condemned by the Mayo Clinic and American Heart Association, and whose authors even warn never to stay on more than seven days due to risk of malnutrition).  The church I escaped from is a major promoter of this within Assemblies circles, and in fact a 1948 book (from near the dawn of modern dominionism) is literally titled "Atomic Power with God Through Fasting And Prayer".

Very often, poor people are also specifically targeted (as they get sucked further in) by dominionists promoting multilevel marketing schemes--particularly AmWay, which itself promotes dominionism and has been used as a recruitment front for dominionists; increasingly, people are being targeted in the "name it and claim it" neopente churches for frank pyramid schemes (in fact, the problem of "affinity fraud" targeting dominionists is sufficiently severe that many state Attorneys-General are issuing specific advisories on it, and it's now thought by consumer advocates that "affinity" pyramid schemes may be, along with 419 schemes, the fastest growing category of fraud in the United States).  The promotion of these schemes as "Christian business opprotunities" doesn't help here, either, and serves as yet another tool to lock down access to the outside world.

So people are throwing their finances in further chaos, are essentially being recruited to coercive religious groups (some of which are highly abusive, literally comparable to Scientology in some cases and as widely regarded as abusive by experts), are putting their actual health in jeopardy, and are often recruited into frank fraud--all in the name of something that is ironically called the "Health and Wealth Gospel" and which serves to do nothing short of stealing the health and wealth of the poor unfortunates involved.

The scary thing is, the groups that are promoting this the most are in fact some of the largest dominionist groups in the US and some of the oldest to boot (Rod Parsley's World Harvest Church, Ted Haggard's New Life Church, so many pastors in the Assemblies of God as to be innumerable (practically the entire "word-faith" expose section of Deception In The Church features either Assemblies-linked or "independent" neopente preachers with close links to the Assemblies; also, of note, practically all televangelists that are not explicitly Baptist, with very rare exception, are linked with the Assemblies or one of its daughter or granddaughter denominations or movements), and many other neopente preachers deep into the dominion theology and deliverance ministry movements are major, major promoters of this stuff).  Part of how groups like the "Patriot Pastors" get their money to do stuff is because members of the involved churches are literally giving half their pre-tax income to these churches in some cases (and World Harvest Church even keeps an automatic billing and deduction program on their website through Mastercard, just to make sure they get their thirty pieces of silver a week; several other really big megachurches do have similar programs).

by dogemperor on Wed May 24, 2006 at 10:20:53 PM EST

In the end, these people may well "name and claim" this country by funding the people and organizations that are leading the Dominionist takeover of this country.

by Mainstream Baptist on Thu May 25, 2006 at 12:33:52 AM EST