Changing Narratives

It seems as though the Prayer Palace is bringing in a forensic accountant to fix the slight image problem that the Star gave its millionaire pastoring team. I imagine that the church can probably spin the audits whatever way it wants - and I suspect unless someone is blatantly caught with their hand in the till, that the leadership will declare the problem solved.

Why? Well, it appears from the above articles that the Melnichuks have the congregation believing that a pastor is sort of like a CEO - complete with the compensation package. So an audit will turn up that the Melnichuks are getting paid an outrageous sum - with the full knowledge of the overseers of the church's financial affairs - and the congregation will accept it.

What needs to be challenged in this situation is the underlying notion that church leaders are entitled to ridiculously wealthy lifestyles on the backs of a poor congregation. Meanwhile the church cannot meet even a minimum of charitable obligations. This may not be illegal or even in breach of GAAP and so an audit may well be a clever way to hit back for the church. They are attempting to change the question from one of morality to one of legality.

Prayer Palace Update

The church with the impoverished congregation and the millionaire pastors has now caught the attention of Richard Dawkins' website. It seems as though the Melnichuks are impervious to shame - a condition shared by Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff.

Leeches

I wasn't the only one disgusted by this piece in the Toronto Star this morning on the Prayer Palace. If you've ever driven up the 400 and wondered what that saucer-shaped thing around Finch Ave was, now you know, it's a den of thieves parading as a church. The pastor and his family seem to live very comfortable lives - something that cannot be said of many of those attending the church. What's more, it appears that so many of the poor folk in this congregation are very generous:

"After worshipping at the Prayer Palace this morning, Hyacinthe Houghron will, as she does every second Sunday, stuff her tired green minivan with a small feast: six coolers of homemade soup, a mountain of sandwiches, cakes and sweets.

Loaded down with second-hand clothes pulled from the ceiling-high piles in her hair salon, she'll give out the goods to homeless people on downtown Toronto's grittiest streets.

Missions like this aren't cheap for people like her and other volunteers at the church. "We're poor folks," says Houghron, describing the majority of the 3,000-strong congregation who attend the spaceship-shaped church at Hwy. 400 and Finch Ave."