He also promotes miracle spring water and claims to be a prophet. Popoff, of People United for Christ in California, was exposed for using an earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife so he could pretend to know personal details about his audience members during religious services. Morningside received between $350,000 and $1m. His representatives have defended the product. He has been sued by Missouri’s attorney general for allegedly selling a fake “coronavirus cure”. His church got between $2m and $5m.īakker, of Morningside Church Productions in Missouri, was defrocked by the Assemblies of God after a highly publicized sexual encounter with a church secretary was imprisoned in the 90s on dozens of fraud and conspiracy charges surrounding his church fundraising and now promotes emergency survival products. Swaggart, who leads the Family Worship Center in Louisiana, was defrocked by the Pentecostal Assemblies of God in the early 1990s after being implicated in sex scandals. They include the televangelists Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Peter Popoff. “We’re grateful that non-profits and churches were able to qualify for the PPP, because we believe that organizations like ours play an important role in serving communities during times of crisis,” said Pastor Bobby Gruenewald.īut highly controversial figures have also received aid. Life.Church, which is headquartered in Edmond, Oklahoma, but has 34 locations and produces podcasts and online religion programs, received between $5m and $10m and said the money would help retain 451 workers. Most of the thousands of churches that received aid are not mired in controversy. The other 40% can be used on other expenses. Only 60% of the funds churches receive must go to salaries to be forgiven. Seven of those 19 are affiliated with the Catholic church, including the archdiocese of New York. Nineteen organizations received the highest loan amount available – between $5m and $10m, according to data released on Monday by the SBA. “The purpose of the program was to subsidize employers so that laid-off workers would not lose their jobs, and that purpose is as important when it comes to a church secretary as it is when it is a receptionist in an office,” McConnell said. Michael McConnell, a constitutional law professor at Stanford University and a former judge, said he did not see a problem with churches taking aid. The Guardian attempted to contact all of the organizations in this story for comment.
The Small Business Administration of the Trump administration may have allowed it, but the constitution forbids it.”īut churches contacted by the Guardian said that they – just like other employers – need the money to keep paying staff, contributing to local economies and serving their communities. “At Americans United we believe that the first amendment clearly forbids this. “The American government at the federal level has never before subsidized houses of worship to pay for the salaries of their clergy,” Laser said. Rachel Laser, the chief executive of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said the situation was unprecedented and unacceptable. There is no restriction against churches – which do not pay taxes, don’t have to disclose their funding sources, and aren’t subject to all anti-discrimination laws – from receiving publicly funded forgivable PPP coronavirus relief loans.
Religious leaders who have advised the Trump administration have seen their operations receive millions, as did a not-for-profit organization that supports Israeli soldiers. Among them are the ministries of wealthy televangelists accused of fraud and one “secretive sect”. The list of recipients of federal Paycheck Protection Program payments includes churches, synagogues, temples and private religious schools.
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