Is there major corruption in Christian Prosperity Ministries?

The senior pastor of Singapore's second-largest mega church bowed three times to his congregation and apologized. Is he sorry that he misappropriated 35.9 million U.S. dollars (some say $50 million) of the churches funds or is he sorry that he and his board members were caught? I suppose only those involved and God know the answer to that.

Last week, Kong Hee and five other leaders of his 17,000-member City Harvest Church were found guilty by Singapore's charity commissioner of siphoning church funds to support the singing career of Kong's wife and church co-founder, Sun Ho, in the United States and Asia. The mega church maintains that Ho's pop music was intended as a form of outreach to non-Christians. The 17,000 membership at the home church does not reflect accurately the number of members in the organization because they have 48 multiple sites which have approximately 59,000 members.

CHC is Singapore’s second largest mega church that preaches a prosperity gospel.  A prosperity Gospel generally makes the Pastor and those on the inside very rich by telling the people their giving to the church will bring them abundant blessing’s from God. In other words the more they give the more they get from God. Corruption runs wild in these prosperity ministries. This teaching is unbiblical, but it is successful in making it possible for some men and women of God to live in multi-million dollar homes, travel in private jets, stay in the finest hotels as they travel the world and drive the most expensive automobiles.

Ho’s secular music career was launched in 2002 as a “Crossover Project,” meant to reach non-Christians and expand the church. Ho, was not charged and is still the megachurch's executive director. Ho has five albums in Taiwan, and appeared in a few hip hop albums in the United States beginning in 2003. A decade ago she became a full-time pop singer wearing skimpy outfits and doing provocative gyrations to accent her music ability.

In 2012, six church leaders were arrested and charged with misusing church building funds to promote Ho’s career. The Commissioner of Charities accused Kong of diverting funds under the guise of contributions to a sister church in Kuala Lumpur, and one witness testified that building funds were used to buy investment bonds in church-owned companies that promoted Ho’s music career. The megachurch also purchased $500,000 in unsold albums to boost her ratings before her American debut. Perhaps she should have tried to launch her singing career on America’s Got Talent or Asia’s Got Talent.

To this day the six profess they do not think they did anything wrong and that the members of the church did or would approve of any use they made of church funds. The pastor maintains no member has come up to him and said he has done anything wrong or that they felt deceived. It is hard for me to believe that the six and Hee’s wife did not know they were acting dishonestly. If they were not trying to hide what they were using the funds for they would have been straight forward and not claimed before being caught the funds were used to build churches in Indonesia.

They now claim to have new people running the operation and a new board, but Hee’s wife is still Executive Director of the organization. They got rid of the underlings and kept the one that was smart enough or shrew enough not to be indicted.

I will concede that part of the problem could have been cultural. Church-sponsored outreach projects—like films or crossover artists performing both religious and secular music are strange to Singapore non-Christian church goers. It is a common practice in the United States. Bishop T.D. Jake’s owns secular media production companies. Daystar television ministries promote and produce crossover music festivals all the time.

There appears to still be thousands of gullible young Singaporeans Church members that have closed ranks, claiming that they approve of their leaders’ spending. The CHC’s building fund alone raised $23m (U.S. Dollars) last year after the deception was known and the trial had begun. They seem to trust Mr. Hee to spend their money in any way he sees fit. Local activists also acknowledge that the church contributes much to the community.

Still, the case has revealed a lack of accountability and transparency at religious organizations. Worshippers often place blind faith in their church leaders, showing little interest in where their tithes and donations go, but hasn’t the public known that for more than two decades. GREED leads people to believe in false hopes and I guess that will never change. We also must remember they prey on those that have lost hope and are experiencing financial difficulties.

You may be wondering how Pastor Kong Hee’s secret got out; well a disgruntled church member Roland Poon made public allegations in 2003 that the funds were being misused to bankroll Hee’s wife’s music career. Instead of church members thanking Mr. Poon they are shunning him. They should have paid him a “whistle blower” fee. In the state of Texas you see signs all along the highways that read “Don’t mess with Texas”. The CHC Christian’s motto should become, “DON’T MESS WITH OUR CHURCH LEADERS.”