WASHINGTON — Only two TV evangelists, including St. Louis’ Joyce Meyer, had responded by Thursday to a U.S. senator’s probe into the financial dealings of six media-oriented ministries.
Fenton-based Joyce Meyer Ministries and Kenneth Copeland Ministries each delivered packages of documents this week to Sen. Charles Grassley. But four other evangelists either rebuffed, ignored or delayed answering the Iowa Republican’s inquiry, a move that could provoke a constitutional showdown over church-state separation.
“It’s good that some of the ministries are cooperating,” Grassley said in a statement Thursday, the deadline he set for the ministries to answer wide-ranging questions about the financial operations of their tax-exempt organizations. “I hope all of them will cooperate in the end.”
But other preachers indicated they had no intention of providing documents detailing their compensation, expense accounts, credit card statements, and other information, as Grassley had asked.
“Senator Grassley’s request clearly disregards the privacy protections of the Church under law and appears to cross the line of constitutional guarantees for churches,” attorneys for the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church said in a statement Thursday. The church is headed by Bishop Eddie Long of Georgia.
Other ministries did not return calls for comment from the Post-Dispatch on Thursday. But Grassley’s office said preacher Creflo Dollar, of World Changers Church International outside Atlanta, told his staff he would not voluntarily cooperate and “raised the idea of a subpoena.”
Grassley’s staff is scheduled to meet with attorneys for Benny Hinn of the World Healing Center Church in Grapevine, Texas, today.
The sixth ministry Grassley sought information from — the Without Walls International Church — is run by Randy and Paula White of Tampa, Fla. Grassley’s office said attorneys for the church made initial contact with his staff Thursday and said they would be back in touch. But the attorneys did not indicate whether the Whites would cooperate.
