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Red Flags Raised As Televangelist Links Ministry And Family

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By ERIC GORSKI

The Associated Press

Published: August 23, 2008

Updated: 08/23/2008 12:14 am

NEWARK, Texas - Here in the gentle hills of north Texas, televangelist Kenneth Copeland has built a religious empire teaching that God wants his followers to prosper.

Over the years, a circle of Copeland's relatives and friends have done just that. They include the brother-in-law with a lucrative deal to broker Copeland's television time, the son who acquired church-owned land for his ranching business and saw it more than quadruple in value, and board members who together have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking at church events.

Church officials say no one improperly benefits through ties to Copeland's evangelical ministry, which claims more than 600,000 subscribers in 134 countries to its flagship Believer's Voice of Victory magazine. The board of directors signs off on important matters, they say. Yet church bylaws give Copeland veto power over board decisions.

Although Copeland insists that his ministry complies with the law, independent tax experts who reviewed information obtained by The Associated Press through interviews, church documents and public records have their doubts. The web of companies and nonprofit organizations tied to the televangelist calls the ministry's integrity into question, they say.

"There are far too many relatives here," said Frances Hill, a University of Miami law professor who specializes in nonprofit tax law. "There's too much money sloshing around, and too much of it sloshing around with people with overlapping affiliations and allegiances by either blood or friendship or just ties over the years. There are red flags all over these relationships."

Neither Kenneth Copeland nor John Copeland, Kenneth's son and the ministry's executive director, responded to interview requests.
Prosperity Gospel Pioneer

Kenneth Copeland, 71, is a pioneer of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that believers are destined to flourish spiritually, physically and financially - and share the wealth with others. His ministry's 1,500-acre campus outside Forth Worth includes a church, private airstrip, hangar for the ministry's aircraft and $6 million, church-owned mansion.

Copeland has come under greater scrutiny in recent months. He is one target of a Senate Finance Committee investigation into allegations of questionable spending and lax financial accountability at six large televangelist organizations that preach health-and-wealth theology.

The other televangelists are Randy and Paula White, the now-divorced founders of Without Walls International Church in Tampa; Joyce Meyer of Joyce Meyer Ministries; Benny Hinn of the World Healing Center; Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church/Eddie L. Long Ministries; and Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church.

All have denied wrongdoing, but Copeland has fought back the hardest, refusing to answer most questions from the inquiry's architect, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.The Whites have only provided responses to the "general" and "real and personal assets" questions. Grassley's staff considers their responses incomplete and are working with their attorneys to get answers to the remaining questions.

The only ministries that appear to be cooperating are Meyer's and Hinn's, a Grassley representative said.

They've engaged in "open and honest dialogue with committee staff," Grassley said in a prepared statement. "They have not only provided responses to every question, but, in the spirit of true cooperation, also have provided information over and above what was requested."

He noted that the attorneys who are not part of the ministries themselves have a "natural incentive" to prolong the process as long as possible.

The Senate committee's main goal, Grassley has said, is to figure out whether tax laws governing churches are adequate. If it's deemed they are not, there could be sweeping changes that affect all religious organizations.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries is organized under the tax code as a church, so it gets a layer of privacy not afforded secular nonprofit groups, which must disclose budgets and salaries. Pastors' pay must be "reasonable," according to the federal tax code.

Family Business Goes Beyond Religion

Copeland's current salary is not made public. However, the church disclosed in a property-tax exemption application that his wages were $364,577 in 1995; Copeland's wife, Gloria, earned $292,593.

The Copeland family is also involved in ventures beyond the church world.
John Copeland has a side business in ranching. The church sold him land for his ranch and residence in 1998.

Lawrence Swicegood, director of media relations for Kenneth Copeland Ministries, said in a written response to questions that appraisals were done to determine fair market value, and the board approved both transactions. The lease is a good deal for the church, he said. John Copeland must improve the land, and county officials confirmed the church gets a roughly $100,000 annual tax break for putting it to agricultural use.

Ellen Aprill, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former U.S. Treasury Department official, said leasing and selling land to the church's top executive raises concerns. Under Iinternal Revenue Service rules, nonprofit agencies can be penalized or lose tax-exempt status if an executive, board member or other insider receives an economic benefit above and beyond what the organization gets in return.

Another Copeland relative runs a separate business with close ties to the ministry.

Douglas Neece, Gloria Copeland's brother-in-law, is president of Integrity Media, which buys television time for the ministry.

The television time is bought at market rates, and the ministry gets a discount from Integrity Media, Swicegood said.

The money involved is substantial. In a 1997 filing in Tarrant County, the church said it paid a "related party" $22 million for "telecast and mass media expense" in 1997 and received a discount of about $1.7 million on the transaction.

Whatever the venture - whether buying TV time or striking land deals with a church executive - Kenneth Copeland Ministries points to its board of directors as an important check that helps to maintain the organization's integrity.

As chairman, Copeland has veto power over any resolution he deems "not in the best financial or operational interests of the Church or not in furtherance of the nonprofit religious purposes of the Church," church bylaws say.

Such veto power is highly unusual, say academics who study nonprofit agencies.

As the Senate Finance Committee considers its next step, Copeland's ministry is portraying the inquiry as an attack on religious liberty.

At the same time, it is moving forward with a big fundraising project: soliciting donations for new television equipment so Copeland can be broadcast in high-definition.

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