Doing God's work

There's not much going on in our nation's capital these days.

I can tell, because a prominent United States senator is getting a lot of media attention for targeting rich televangelists who drive expensive cars and live in ritzy houses.

Surely I'm not the only living American who wonders what United States senators are putting in their coffee.

Here we have a member of the United States Senate -- whose members are paid a gosh-awful lot of money by taxpayers, raise gobs more to keep their incumbency, vote for pork-barrel appropriations that would gag a mastodon, take party-line stands on important issues without thinking, make promises by the bucketful that are never kept, refuse to do anything about Social Security or Medicare, go on field trips paid for by moneybag lobbyists and tell us they are concerned about government accountability -- threatening to use the full power of the the most exclusive legislative body in the world to go after successful televangelists whose excessive lifestyles are both supported and emulated by thousands upon thousands of faithful believers.

What am I missing?

I'm not saying I'd let my daughter marry a televangelist. Some of them are as creepy as you could possibly imagine.

Yet some of them draw souls to a meaningful relationship with their Savior, engage the faithful in good works, build up the body of Christ in a transitory world and make this planet a better place.

Of course, it takes a good cash flow to make it all happen.

So what? The fleeced flocks think they're getting their money's worth. If they weren't, the good senator would have ample reason to get riled up.

God has made a lot of money for a lot of no-good swindlers in the last 4,000 or 5,000 years. Ministers of snake oil can gin up quite a following. And those followers expect their shepherd to dress well, have clear skin and white teeth, ride in expensive automobiles and own private jets. This is the theology of infinite bounty, both spiritual and worldly. And it is protected by the United States Constitution.

I don't know if some of the televangelists are breaking federal laws. If they get paid seven-figure salaries, they presumably have accountants smart enough to invest wisely and take all the tax breaks afforded any other true-blue taxpayer. If the well-heeled evangelists are appropriating goodies from the offering plate for personal uses, they probably are smart enough to point to a vote by some board or executive committee that said go right ahead.

So why am I all worked up about this?

When the clout of government is used to diminish a constitutionally protected liberty that I both enjoy and rely upon, I grow deeply concerned about all those other liberties I've grown accustomed to as a U.S. citizen.

This erosion of our rights is ongoing and, at times, subtle. When the executive branch claims to have rights that exceed those of ordinary citizens, I grow deeply concerned that a privilege I have assumed was inviolable could be next. When the legislative branch imitates the executive branch, I panic.

When money-grubbing United States senators have the will and wherewithal to take on money-grubbing televangelists, I grow deeply concerned about who is the grubbiest.

Several years ago I was given a church assignment to call on the homebound and dying in our congregation. During my visits to one parishioner, I noticed that she was always watching a particular televangelist. This woman was crippled with pain beyond human tolerance, but she told me, with a big smile, that she mailed this TV evangelist $10 every month. For healing? I asked. No, because he's so pretty, she said, and because I can.

Her joy of giving made the $10 a good investment, I reckon, probably better than the taxes she sent to Washington for the U.S. Senate to play with.

Care for the poor and lonely, Jesus said -- not knowing, of course, what it would cost to build TV studios and get a good satellite uplink.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.