By God wants you to be rich, especially if you invest in the pastor’s investment scheme:
The pastor of the largest church in Europe has recently been drawn into a financial dispute concerning $100 million invested in a failed business venture that he had allegedly encouraged church members to participate in.
Ukrainian charismatic pastor Sunday Adelaja, founder of the 30,000-member Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations in Kiev, is accused by some Pentecostal leaders of plotting an investment scheme and planning to run off with the funds after promising huge returns to members.
My advice is: never give money to churches or clergymen. Problem solved.
Entropist: These idiots are wrong on so many different levels, its hard to... 
Just a Guy: Me an my wife have negotiated infidelity. Meaning she can be with other guys as long as she doesn’t hide... 
Gwenny: Absolutely not! The world has plenty of people having kids. A child consumes HUGE amounts of resources, which from both a... 
Siberia: Or maybe they know they have neither patience nor inclination to deal with the fruit of their loins and thus, rather than be... 
DDM: Repubs and Dems. He’s saying they only take first impressions and... 
CM: Good point, most religions encourage having a lot of children. From an evolutionary standpoint you sort of owe it to your... 
Jasowah: “They don’t go beyond those emotions, and that’s the... 
16 Comments
God wants escudos
God wants pesetas
Don’t send lira
God don’t want small potatoes
God wants small towns
God wants pain
God wants clean up rock campaigns
God wants windows
God wants solutions
God wants TV
God wants contributions
What God wants God gets God help us all
(‘What God Wants (part 2) – Roger Waters)
Par for the course! Giving money to churches is dumping money into a garbage can. They do not do anything productive with the money. They reinvest the money in themselves for better “stuff” and so the ministry staff can have nicer houses and nicer cars. The community the church is supposed to “serve” gets nothing in return.
Your advice is well put. If you feel the need to give money give to those who actually help others.
Ukraine must be the hot topic in evangelical circles right now. My former church just started a local plant for young Ukranians. (How many young Ukranians can there be in my area? Apparently more than I would have thought.) And someone I went to college with just moved to the Ukraine on a mission.
Churches don’t spend all that money on themselves, they spend quite a bit on evangelizing the world!
But evangilizing the world is inherently spending money on themselves :) Evangelism = converts = Sales. Sales = Tithing = more money for the church.
Sunday Adelaja’s church is in 5 minutes from my parents house in Kiev. So, I know a little about the guy; I watched his rise over last couple of years. He created his group as a new “progressive” religious organization for businessmen, and successful people, and involved many of very influential people. It was almost a combination of religious group and business club. During the service, the parking lot was full of Mercedes 600s, Porshes, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. In fact, this was the highest concentration of luxury cars in one place I’ve ever seen.
The major of Kiev, Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetsky, is also member of his church. So, Adelaja always had a lot of support by city officials. Not sure what happens with him now.
I wish here in the USA all churches would have to provide complete records of money taken in and what it is spent on. I doubt many of those giving money would like the way the money is spent.
Normally a church’s financial records are availeble to be viewed by any church member upon request.
Some churches do practice transparency, that’s true, but there are a huge number of them that don’t. Enough that it’s not safe nor fair to say “normal.”
Every sect makes its own little rules. Sometimes every church in a sect gets to make its rules. Not every church belongs to a sect.
And that’s not counting dioceses or divisions or wards or other hierarchical steps within various sects with their own budgets.
It’s the Wild West out there.
Worse, some of these churches have members who are not only being bilked for personal gain by a crime lord known as a minister, they’re convinced it’s right that this con artist has personal jets and stays in luxury hotels. Or they cling to their bronze age fantasy, after having to pay huge sums out of church funds for sexual harassment/abuse lawsuits. Or after their crime lord is brought in on tax evasion. Or learning what schnooks they were for contributing the milk money after the minister is exposed for committing frauds so heinous that the church becomes a national laughingstock (Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton).
It would be different if theists learned from these swindles and shakedowns, but it happens again and again and again, decade after decade. It never seems to change.
The hallmark of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result. Make of that what you will.
Churches don’t spend all that money on themselves, they spend quite a bit on evangelizing the world!
You make evangelizing sound like a good thing. It’s been catastrophic in Africa. Now Pentecostals have gotten people so worked about witches that their converts are killing their kids for being witches; the parents aren’t getting this idea from how the children are acting, the religious leaders are marking the kids as witches! This is not progress.
But if you want more proof of where most of the real moneys raised in some of our churches are going, come to America. We have minsters living like kings.
Even in the lesser-known churches, there’s more money than most people can imagine, sums being spent on luxuries that would cost the parishioners months of hard work, if not a year.
How’s this for an example of one of these lesser lights, some guy that could be in any town in America:
Spending Raises Questions
What were these churchgoers doing investing their money in anything? That would make them rich, especially with the returns being promised. Doesn’t the bible have something to say about rich people? Something about camels and needles if I recall correctly.
The pastor was actually helping his flock get into heaven! If only all pastors were that considerate…
Deputy of the Head of Administration of the President of Ukraine Igor Popov is disturbed at the Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko’s actions against Sunday Adelaja
What will Lutsenko choose: politics or law?
4th, May a deputy of the Head of Administration of the President of Ukraine, Igor Popov, held a chat-conference on Internet resource “Glavred”.
He answered to numerous issues of the day related to today’s political processes in Ukraine. One of the questions was about the senior pastor of the Christian church “Embassy of God”, Sunday Adelaja, and about public charges of the Minister of Interior Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko against Sunday Adelaja. Igor Popov’s answer was the following:
“I am neither a judge nor a politician. That is why I do not accuse people without having sufficient information and court’s decision. Unfortunately, representatives of some law enforcement bodies use their status for political struggle. Instead of pursuing criminals they speak in mass media.”
Let us mention that accusing an honest and world-respected pastor with fraud, the minister Yuriy Lutsenko broke the main Law of Ukraine, which is the Constitution of Ukraine. Particularly, article 62 of the Constitution prohibiting accusing a man without proving his guilt in court was broken.
“Unfortunately, in most cases such statements are not resulted in any other steps to punish the guilty”, – deputy of the Head of Administration of the President of Ukraine, Igor Popov, added.
Indeed, the like official violations have become a practice of some Ukrainian politicians. However, these violations of law enforcement bodies can be equated with a crime, because mentioned agencies are to protect the law and the nation.
These events show that Ukrainian society cannot come back to the past. There is no place in politics for officials who ignore the principles of democracy.
We would like to believe that the President of Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, as a guarantor of the Constitution will react to the actions of the minister Yuriy Lutsenko against pastor Sunday Adelaja in order to avoid the like violations against citizens of Ukraine and guests of our country.
Political Scientist Olexandr Doniy, from the same party as Luzhenko believes Sunday Adelaja has never been involved with King’s Capital
There are groundless public declarations made by the Minister of Internal Affairs, J. Luzhenko, which have occurred in Mass Media for the last several months. J.Luzhenko dared to slander the Senior Pastor of the Embassy of God church accusing him in criminal involvement and activity of the financial company King’s Capital, accusing him in the fraud specified in paragraph 3, article 37 and paragraph 4, article 190 of the Constitution of Ukraine. Thereby he broke the Law of Ukraine as presumption of innocence is valid in our country until judgment in court, which means that a person is considered not guilty or innocent until the court decision of guilt.
Sunday Adelaja personally objects all charges, declaring that he has nothing to do with the building, activity, and administration of King’s Capital. He considers it as the political strategy of some politicians whose path he has crossed not once.
Recently political scientist Olexandr Doniy, the deputy of the Parliament’s group “Our Ukraine is the National self-defense” in hard talk said: “Logically it is not worthwhile for the pastor of the most influential church (per se timeless project) to risk his authority getting involved in a financial pyramid (its quick and huge profits end up by escape of the founders or general managers)”.
Olexandr Doniy, who is from the same party as J.Luzhenko, declared that he did not see any documents proving accusations of Sunday Adelaja, and he also added that personally Pastor Sunday Adelaja with his members of the church have the right to find out in the Ministry of Internal Affairs on what actual grounds afore mentioned accusations are brought. As experience shows (the case of Boris Kolesnikov) in most cases such accusations are not proved. In 2004 the Ministry of Internal Affairs with J.Luzhenko incriminated to Boris Kolesnikov acquisition with shares extortion of the business center “White Swan” (Beluy Lebed). The politician spent several months in pre-trial prison. As a result lawyers strived for a discharge of Boris Kolesnikov closing of the criminal case in the absence of crime in the act.
History of the Ukrainian justice shows that criminal cases widely spread by politicians through Mass Media at the beginning and often during the prejudicial inquiry were closed even without court. So it is possible to forecast that this criminal case incriminated by mister J.Luzhenko against pastor Sunday Adelaja will not be proved legally in court.
Sviatoslav Piskun: Lutsenko has broken the Constitution in case of pastor Sunday Adelaja
April, 29, the press-conference on the topic: “Law is one for everyone!” was held by the General prosecutor, national deputy of Ukraine Sviatoslav Piskun.
The previous General public prosecutor of Ukraine expressed his position as to the absurd accusations addressed to pastor Sunday Adelaja by the main policeman of country.
It is known that the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine – Juriy Lutsenko publicly imputed a crime to the senior pastor of the God’s Embassy Church, which was unproved, baseless and illegal as the Constitution of Ukraine provides presumption of innocence before a court’s sentence.
Sviatoslav Piskun strongly objects the accusation, which was brought against pastor Sunday and declared: “We cannot talk about the issue of the pastor without adducing any proof. Moreover I consider the fact that many politicians getting to the TV point at him saying “He is villain” is wrong. It is a straight violation of the Constitution, in which it is written that until guilt is proved in the court (even not during the investigation, but in the court) no one can be recognized as guilty”.
“After all where was this practice taken from? It seems to me that this practice came from 2004, when everyone came out to Maidan and said: “Prison to bandits!” So who are those bandits? They are whoever we point at…” – Mr. Piskun added.
First of all before you name someone a villain, you should prove their guilt. Having received the position of the Minister of Internal Affairs and after all revolution slogans Juriy Lutsenko opened numerous criminal cases, though many of them were not taken to the court, because they were not confirmed in pre-judicial investigation.
There was no court’s sentence for pastor Sunday, but the populist declarations of Mr. Lutsenko are deceiving Ukraine. The Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine makes Ukrainian nation lose faith in the power of law and equality of everyone, including officials before the Law.
The General persecutor of Ukraine considers all actions of Lutsenko to be a violation of the Main Law – The Constitution, but the current General persecutor O. Medved’ko does not react to illegal accusations against pastor Sunday accordingly to his responsibilities, and that shows that some internal institutions and certain politicians are joined against the pastor and are not interested in finding the truth in this case.
However it is the Minister of Internal Affairs Juriy Lutsenko who should answer for his consciously planed illegal actions against pastor Sunday Adelaja. Satisfaction has not been abolished in Justice yet.
The Minister of Justice does not support Lutsenko’s accusations against Adeladja
The Ukrainian Minister of justice, Mykola Onischyk took part in a press conference on Internet Portal “Obozrevatel” on April 7. The main Ukrainian lawyer expressed his position about the accusations against Pastor Sunday Adelaja and legality of the actions by the country’s Head Police officer.
Among the questions addressed to the Ukrainian Minister of justice was one concerning the accusation brought publicly by the Ukrainian Minister of MIA, Yuriy Lutsenko against the Senior Pastor of the Embassy of God church, Sunday Adelaja.
On the question whether you think pastor Sunday Adelaja is an offender or not, the Ukrainian Minister of justice, Mykola Onischyk answered the following: “For Ukraine as a country to achieve democracy, it is necessary to keep the principle presuming innocence. It means that a person can not be considered guilty or be accused of committing a crime until the verdict of “the accused” is passed. That is the reason why I have to refrain from making comments on this. Also I would like to take notice that any governmental body must adhere to this constitutional imperative. It is possible that the investigation of this criminal case has already possessed certain materials indicative of signs presence of crime, but this information usually is a secret investigation and can not be spread. We have to proceed from that until accusatory sentence is passed and a person considered innocent”.
As it is known, there is still no accusatory sentence against Pastor Sunday Adelaja, but Lutsenko’s loud speeches lead people astray. It is not understandable why the Ukrainian Minister of MIA makes public addresses about Sunday Adelaja before the eyes of the whole country, Ukraine and thereby breaks the Ukrainian Law.
To date the principle of presumption of innocence is known to every student, but as we can see, the Head Police officer does not know that. Provoke indignation that the Ukrainian Minister of MIA who has to watch over the Law breaks it himself. Is it really so, that after all, Lutsenko’s speeches are outright racist manifestations and political orders about Pastor of the Embassy of God church, Sunday Adelaja?
LUTSENKO SENT IN HIS RESIGNATION
(the person who was leading the false accusations against Sunday Adelaja)
Yuri Lutsenko has sent in his resignation from the post of the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine and pleads the parliament to consider this matter in his absence.
According to a reporter of the Ukrainian National News Agency this news was announced during a meeting of conciliation commission by the chairman of the Supreme Council of Ukraine Vladimir Litvin, who read the corresponding letter of Yuri Lutsenko addressed to the parliament.
You don’t know what you are speaking about. It is all lies. The case is going to be closed, probably before this year ends and to the shame of the Ukrainian police. They have done so many unlawful things concerning this case and Ukraine’s no.1 lawyer has looked over all documents and said that they don’t have any evidence at all. It’s the corruption that could first of all start this case and then keep it open so many months without evidence.
Please, don’t be in a hurry to accuse like so many others. When the truth is shown many will remember Jesus words “don’t judge”.