Televangelist Scammers (Parts 3 of 3)
By Brian Lancaster (December 2023)
Website: www.laughingcoyote.net
Most countries wouldn't allow blatant scammers on TV who commit fraud on a daily basis at the expense of the sick and elderly, but the United States of America is special. Aspiring con-artists and faith-based grifters from around the globe make their way here to practice their art. This final article will examine two of them: Peter Popoff from Germany and Edir Macedo from Brazil.
Part 1: https://blancaster45.blogspot.com/2023/03/insane-televangelist-scandals.html
Part 2: https://blancaster45.blogspot.com/2023/12/televangelist-grifters-part-2-of-3.html
#8) Peter Popoff (East Berlin, $10 million)
Peter Popoff was born in 1946 in East Berlin to an alcoholic father named George. His dad taught him the ropes of religious grifting from a young age. George claimed that Jesus came to him in a dream in April 1928 and warned him of an earthquake, which allegedly struck later that day (couldn't find any records). George then went to Bible college and graduated at age 19 and successfully opened churches in multiple countries.
When Berlin fell, the Soviet Union closed George Popoff's church in Berlin, so he began preaching on the street. One day, George said the KGB drove up, threw the whole Popoff family into a truck, and drove them to the American headquarters in Berlin -- Peter was one year old and claims to remember this. According to George, the KGB agent said they were free to go, and then disappeared into thin air while he wasn't looking. George started crying and said it was an angel.
Another miracle occurred while the family was waiting for their immigration papers. George said he and his family escaped several kidnapping attempts by the Russians. He claimed to have then found a note in a bottle from a preacher in Tacoma, Washington that drifted from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, up the Rhine River, and through the canals into Berlin. The letter invited him to preach in Tacoma, another sign of his destiny.
The final sign that God wanted the Popoffs to preach in America happened shortly after they arrived in Tacoma. God granted George the ability to speak English instantly for his sermons -- but only to preach. He initially could not understand anyone who spoke English to him. He quickly learned, however, and began spreading the word across the country. He bought lots of air time to advertise fantastic stories, like how he survived for 21 days without water in a Soviet prison camp.
It seems likely that George coached his son Peter into having divine visions. When he was 6, Peter says that he had a fever and talked to Jesus. When he was 9, he was sick again and was visited by the Angel of Death, he says, but he prayed and Death was replaced by the figure of Jesus. People began calling him the "Miracle boy evangelist from behind the Iron Curtain."
Today, Peter continues the proud family tradition of telling the absolute truth at all times, claiming that he can cure cancer and AIDS through bopping people on the head. He began giving sermons in 1960, at age 14. While travelling, he said he encountered the KGB angel hitch-hiking, recognizing him from when he was one year old in Berlin. At age 17, God told him that he needed to go back to eastern Europe to spread the gospel.
In the late 1970s and early 80s he trained followers to smuggle Bibles into Soviet territory, setting up a school in Germany. He dumped Bibles into the Black Sea, saying that he knew people who "knew the current." It is unclear how much of the funds he raised were used for their stated purpose.
In 1985, he raised money to attach Bibles to helium balloons and float them into the Soviet Union. When asked for proof that he had indeed spent the money on this endeavor, he replied that Satanists broke into his home and stole the Bibles. The glass was broken from the inside, clearly evidence planted by Satan. Thankfully, Popoff had ordered new window panes three days before the break-in, another miracle.
During his sermons, Popoff would convince people to throw their prescription medication on the stage because they didn't need it. The good shit was never found during cleanup.
In 1986, Peter Popoff was exposed by magician James Randi as a charlatan. Randi wrote that Popoff was wearing an earpiece so his wife could secretly explain the ailments of the audience members at his faith healing service, as well as their home addresses, which Peter would claim to divine through the divine.
Randi recorded Peter's wife, Liz, talking to him through the earpiece about the audience. She described one of them as "that big n***er in the back", and warned him, "Keep your hands off those tits... I'm watching you." Liz and her assistant, Pam, would often laugh at the sick people when relaying information.
James Randi's 6-month investigation revealed that the real wheelchair-bound audience was kept in a separate section that was roped off. Popoff would also seat audience members in wheelchairs who would walk with a cane, etc., then tell them to rise during the sermon. They would do so to applause, not realizing they were part of the "miracle". The number of paid actors who have kept their mouths shut, however, is astounding.
James Randi reported his evidence of fraud to the authorities first, to no avail. He then took his findings to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The strategy worked, and it ruined Peter Popoff's racket. Thanks to the Amazing Randi, Popoff had lost his fortune, and he filed for bankruptcy in 1987.
Popoff claimed these audio recordings were doctored and vehemently denied all accusations of quackery. It was also revealed that he had the cameraman rub an onion in his face for tears when he begged for loans on TV.
Starting in the 1990s, however, Peter Popoff managed to claw his way back into the spotlight and amass $10 million, a true inspiration. He began buying TV ads to sell miracle spring water, which he still does to this day. Popoff's TV sermons focus on cold, hard cash. He avoids discussing damnation or salvation in favor of straight Benjamins.
His website offers a form to fill out to receive the free packet of miracle spring water. This water is delivered with written details and instructions that are not explained on the website.
When ordered, the accompanying letter explains that the water is from a spring near Chernobyl, and that everyone who drank from this spring immediately following the 1986 meltdown survived. As Jeff Belanger points out on his blog, it takes a while for nuclear radiation to seep into the groundwater (jeffbelanger.com).
The instructions changed often, initially telling people to drink the water, then later specifically instructing people to not ingest it, and instead sprinkle it on various things like your face or your wallet. Since Popoff technically sends these samples out for free, it's impossible that they are all from the same Chernobyl spring, thankfully. The letters all look like they are hand-written and signed by Popoff personally, which is also impossible.
In 1998, he started buying airtime on BET, saying he would heal people of financial troubles. In 2019, "black and ethnic-oriented" UK channel BEN TV, was fined 25,000 pounds for airing a Popoff ad for miracle water. This would probably never happen in the States, due to the insane legal immunity of religion, allowing churches to commit fraud and theft on a mass scale.
It is indeed illegal to sell fake medicine, and Peter Popoff should be in prison. He won the satirical 2011 Pigasus award, presented by the Amazing James Randi. The joke is on America, though. Today, Popoff is worth over $10 million. There's no way to know exactly how much, because churches don't have to report to the IRS.
Sources:
Belanger, Jeff. "Introducing Profit Rev. Peter Popoff" (2 Jan 2007). https://jeffbelanger.com/introducing-profit-rev-peter-popoff/
Duke, Barry. Patheos. "'Miracle Water' Commercial Just Cost a Broadcaster 25,000 pounds" (17 Oct 2019). https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2019/10/miracle-water-commercial-just-cost-a-broadcaster-25000/
Dollop Podcast. "Peter Popoff" (May 2023). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01QMUmytqA
Wikipedia. "Peter Popoff". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Popoff
#9) Edir Macedo (Brazil, $1 to $2 billion)
Worth $1.2 billion USD in 2023 according to Forbes, Edir Macedo is the richest pastor in the world due to his media and banking empire. He founded the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in 1977, which currently has over 12 million followers worldwide.
Like most televangelists, he preaches "prosperity theology", the idea that donating money to his church will lead to material benefits, with 10% of your income being the absolute minimum. He owns the second largest television network in Brazil, RecordTV, as well as the vast majority of the bank, Banco Renner.
Born to a Catholic family in the state of Rio de Jinero in 1945, his father allegedly beat him for his deformed fingers (a birth defect). He converted to Pentecostalism at age 18 after attending a sermon by Robert E. McAlister that he said cured his sister's asthma. Sadly, his fingers remained fucked up.
Perhaps his Catholic upbringing is what causes his sermons to focus so much on damnation and demonic possession. He runs a campaign of fear and hatred against indigenous and African-influenced religions.
Macedo began preaching in the favelas in the 1960s -- prime hunting grounds for the desperate and impoverished. He performed exorcisms, baptized people in a kiddie pool, and collected donations. He built churches on the outskirts of Rio, which he kept open until midnight for the lower class that worked all day.
Those donations eventually propelled him to the top levels of Bible-grifter society, and he is indeed one of the few truly "self-made" billionaires in the world. By the 1980s, he was opening two churches a month, and his sermons were filling stadiums. Macedo's sermons hold "holy bonfires", in which people give donations of cash, jewelry, or other valuables, including cars and property.
His purchase of Rede Record (RecordTV) in 1989 was probably with church funds, which would be illegal. Edir claims this control of the media is necessary to combat slander. He also owns a Telemundo affiliate in Atlanta, Record News, Line Records, and 64 radio stations, according to Wikipedia.
Macedo once told his followers that the United States is the richest country in the world because the founding fathers were the most devoted Christians, as evidenced by the words "In God We Trust" on US money. Only some of the framers of the U.S. Constitution were Christian, others were theistic rationalists.
He's stated that women should not go into higher education. He also got in trouble for writing an article opposed to interracial marriages, saying that racially-mixed children would be discriminated against, so they shouldn't be born -- solid reasoning.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God emphasizes protection from demons more so than the vanilla Pentecostalism it came from. Edir's books are full of condemnations of "voodoo" and similar religions brought to Brazil by African slaves. He decries all religion with African influence as Satanism.
In 1997, British advertising authorities demanded the removal of a church poster that read: "Constant headaches, depression, insomnia, fears, bad luck, strange diseases... These are just a few symptoms caused by demons." The church takes demonic possession very seriously. They list 12 signs of possession: "fits of rage, constant headaches, insomnia, incurable diseases, fear, seizures, suicidal thoughts, depression, addictions, romantic instability, voices and vision, and involvement in witchcraft and the occult" (Demonology).
In 2009 he was charged with fraud. His pastors allegedly delivered trash bags full of cash to black market money changers, who would clean it overseas, and bring it back into Brazil where he would expand his media and business empire. He was never convicted.
According to a 2017 article, Edir Macedo was accused of running a human trafficking ring posing as an adoption network. Macedo has said himself that poor families have offered their children as donations during his "holy bonfires". Thankfully these bonfires are metaphorical, but children were allegedly taken from poor families in Portugal and shipped overseas. His adopted grandchildren have made public statements saying their adoptions were legal, though they were children at the time and couldn't have known.
Using adopted children as free labor is a common practice of religious organizations, but Macedo has yet to be indicted for human trafficking.
Edir Macedo was one of the biggest voices supporting Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing presidency from 2019 to 2022, but it was also heavily involved in the Lula da Silva's left-wing administration beforehand. In his 2006 campaign, Lula said, "For many years of my life, people said if I was elected, I would close the doors of the evangelical churches. I say today that the evangelical church doesn’t have any doubts about President Lula, and President Lula doesn’t have any doubts about the evangelical church." Just like in the U.S., evangelicalism has taken a stranglehold over the entire political spectrum of Brazil.
Sources:
Vasagar, Jeevan. The Guardian. "The Exorcists" (14 Jan 2001). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/15/religion.uk
Baria, Steven. S&P Global. "Evangelist business mogul gains control of Brazil's Banco AJ Renner" (3 July 2020). https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/evangelist-business-mogul-gains-control-of-brazil-s-banco-aj-renner-59311172
Felten, George, "Demonology According to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God Three Important Aspects and a Lutheran Response" (2020). Master of Art Theology Thesis. 109. https://scholar.csl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=ma_th
Ismail, Ali. "Brazil: Evangelical leader tied to Lula government charged with wholesale fraud" (15 Sep. 2009). https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/09/braz-s15.html
"Media billionaire accused of involvement in alleged illegal adoption network that 'stole dozens of Portuguese children'" (11 Dec. 2017). https://www.portugalresident.com/media-billionaire-accused-of-involvement-in-alleged-illegal-adoption-network-that-stole-dozens-of-portuguese-children/
McCoy, Terrence. Washington Post. "Soldiers of Jesus" (8 Dec 2019).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/soldiers-of-jesus-armed-neo-pentecostals-torment-brazils-religious-minorities/2019/12/08/fd74de6e-fff0-11e9-8501-2a7123a38c58_story.html
Forbes. "Edir Macedo". https://www.forbes.com/profile/edir-macedo/?sh=20e01e722fcf
Grubstakers Podcast. "Edir Macedo". https://www.grubstakers.net/episode/124-edir-macedo-ft-michael-brooks/
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