His message was very clear and very effective. - ToK
From time to time his financial dealings attracted the unwelcome attentions of the Internal Revenue Service, but his church somehow managed to retain its tax-exempt status and continues to this day. Its website describes its founder as a man whose teachings "are accepted as universal truths". Sadly for Christianity, they probably are. [My emphasis]
From an outstanding source of well written obituaries, a Telegraph [UK] article, The Reverend Ike, more below:
It is interesting to find that the Right Reverend Doctor Eikerenkoetter was, as his last name suggests, of Dutch descent. At the risk of sounding bigoted, it seems to me that the Dutch can always be depended upon to make money.
I report and link. You decide. - ToK
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. - 2 Timothy 2:15
More from a Telegraph [UK] article, The Reverend Ike:
The Reverend Ike [/] Published: 5:20PM BST 30 Jul 2009
The Rt Rev Dr Frederick J Eikerenkoetter II, who died on July 28 aged 74, was a pioneer preacher of what has become known as the "Prosperity Gospel"; this is based on the claim that the root of all evil is not the love of money, but the lack of it.
The Reverend Ike, as he was known to his followers, offered to open people's hearts to the love of God: "But it won't be the God you learned about in Sunday School. It won't be that stingy, hard-hearted, hard-of-hearing God-in the-Sky." Instead it would be a God who teaches that salvation lies in being rich.
"Close your eyes and see green," he exhorted his followers. "Money up to your armpits, a roomful of money and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool." Or alternatively: "Don't wait for your pie in the sky, by and by. Say I want my pie right now – and I want it with ice cream on top!"
There was no point in prayer and repentance: "When you kneel down to pray, you put yourself in a good position to get a kick in the behind." And there was absolutely no virtue in self-denial: "If it's that difficult for a rich man to get into heaven, think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in. He doesn't even have a bribe for the gatekeeper."
The way to salvation was through a self-help philosophy which the Reverend Ike called "positive self-image psychology" or "thinkonomics", and his approach was to interpret the Bible "psychologically, rather than theologically". "This is the do-it-yourself church," he proclaimed. "The only saviour in this philosophy is God in you."
The main beneficiary of this approach was the Reverend Ike himself. As well as founding no fewer than three churches, he was one of the first evangelists to exploit the power of television. At the height of his success, in the 1970s, he reached an audience estimated at 2.5 million.
In return for spiritual guidance, he requested cash donations – notes, preferably, rather than coins ("Change makes your minister nervous," he claimed). He also sold a range of merchandise, including guides on issues such as to "How to have surplus instead of shortage"; "How to make people love to do exactly what you want"; and "Enemy Fixer", a guide to "getting rid of your enemies without getting into trouble".
Since money was "God in action" and its accoutrements a sign of Divine Grace, the Reverend Ike had no qualms about flaunting it with luxurious homes in New York and Hollywood, a huge rhinestone-encrusted wardrobe, drawers full of flashy jewellery and a fleet of Cadillacs, Bentleys and Rolls-Royces. "My garages runneth over," as he put it.
Frederick Joseph Eikerenkoetter II was born on June 1 1935 at Ridgeland, South Carolina. His father was a Baptist minister of Dutch-Indonesian extraction, his mother an African-American schoolteacher. [/] He began his career as a teenage preacher at his father's church and, after leaving school, took a degree in Theology at the American Bible College in Chicago. After two years in the US Air Force as an assistant chaplain, he returned to Ridgeland, where he founded his first church, the United Church of Jesus Christ for All People.
Somehow, though, the traditional Christian message did not seem to offer the answers the Reverend Ike was looking for, and in 1964 he moved to Boston where he founded the United Christian Evangelistic Association and set himself up as a faith healer. Two years later he moved to New York City to establish the Christ Community United Church, setting up shop in an old cinema in Harlem. It was here that he began to tailor his message to appeal to a more prosperous audience.
In 1965 he devised the "Blessing Plan", under which the faithful were exhorted to give whatever they could afford to the Reverend Ike, with the promise that it would be returned with interest to those of sufficient faith.
In 1969 the fruits of the Blessing Plan enabled him to pay $600,000 for the old Loew's 175th Street movie theatre, a 1930s extravaganza described as being built in the "Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hindu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco style". He made it his headquarters, calling it the Palace Cathedral. By the mid-1970s the Reverend Ike was touring the country and preaching on 1,770 radio stations and on major television networks.
From time to time his financial dealings attracted the unwelcome attentions of the Internal Revenue Service, but his church somehow managed to retain its tax-exempt status and continues to this day. Its website describes its founder as a man whose teachings "are accepted as universal truths". Sadly for Christianity, they probably are.
The Reverend Ike married, in 1962, Eula May Dent. They had a son, Xavier F Eikerenkoetter, who inherits the ministry. [/] Published July 30 2009 [/] [My ellipses and emphasis]
