If you're like Clarence Darrow, this is likely to be one obituary you may read with great pleasure...
Paul Crouch, televangelist founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network is dead.
Today, the world is short one grifter that made outrageous fortunes by fleecing little old ladies out of their Social Security checks.
Fair warning - I'm not much of a fan of paying respect to the dead if they weren't worthy of respect in life. If that's not to your liking, this isn't the diary for you...
Paul Crouch (no relation to Barty Jr., though the behavior's similar...) was one of the creators of Prosperity Gospel, which he used to grow a multi-billion dollar empire.
Prosperity Gospel is based on old teachings. Paul Crouch came from an Assemblies of God church, which taught that believers that showed sufficient faith were rewarded by God with wealth. So behave like a good Christian, and give to your church and God will reward you with riches. Just get your credit card and call our toll-free number! (NOTE: I updated this. The Calvinists had a different way of coming to the "If you're wealthy and prosperous, that means God likes you!" philosophy.)
This sort of thing also brought us the Protestant work ethic - people frantically scrambling to build wealth to show the world that God liked them. Because if you were poor, it was because God hated you and you deserved to suffer.
And it also brought us the bullshit artists like Paul Crouch that preached it. Crouch didn't just acquire insane amounts of wealth. He flaunted it proudly, showing it as his proof that he was one of God's favorites.
He owned 13 mansions, a private jet, and even spent $100,000 on a mobile home just for his wife's dogs.
He's survived by his wife Jan (I'll save my snarky remarks about her...) and Trinity Broadcasting Network, his network of dozens of channels with everything from Jesus cartoons to Jesus soap-operas, oh, that had Praise-a-Thons that raised $90 million dollars, EACH. From little old ladies' Social Security checks.
Oh, and he also founded the Holy Land Experience theme park.
Among his other sins, he also spewed a lot of anti LGBT bigotry, with Paul himself doing the old plug-and-socket routine in his sermons. TBN also hosted such deluminaries as John Hagee, Benny Hinn, and Rick Santorum. Even though Crouch himself couldn't resist getting in gay trysts that resulted in $400,000 settlements.
Crouch also palled around with third-world dictators, such as Guatemala's Efraim Rios Montt, and South Africa's apartheid thugs, so he could put up TV stations and use his Prosperity Gospel to fleece the world's most desperate.
Really, I have only one thing to say about Paul Crouch. Good riddance. If I was the praying type, I'd be thinking that Paul Crouch actually worked for the other guy, rather than Jesus...
2:31 PM PT: Note: I updated my diary based on a critique from JamesGG.