On April 11, 2013, when Brenda Walsh was still the popular Kids Time producer and host on Three Angels Broadcasting Network, she appeared on a Thursday Night Live program with then-3ABN president Jim Gilley and founder Danny Shelton. During a two-hour interview, the men praised Walsh and her two sisters (collectively known as “the Micheff Sisters”) for their nearly two decades of volunteer service producing children’s programming, cooking shows, and music for the religious network.
This is not the first scandal Danny Shelton and 3ABN has been involved in. There may be some fault on both sides, but it certainly seems to me that 3ABN is hugely at fault. I have lost respect for Jill, as a columnist in the Adventist Review.
There’s no winner in this situation. The enemy has been trying relentlessly to destroy 3abn from without and from within. Let us pray for all the parties involved. I am hoping that God will bring something good out of this mess.
This is the problem when there are no “outside” persons on the
Board of this type of corporation to ask Questions, and to
present Cautions and where everyone on the Board are “Yes”
persons. No one to control behaviors and accountability.
Many independent ministries follow the standards of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. I don’t see 3ABN in their database. The organization promotes transparency and accountability for funding from donors.
I’m thinking that after dumping wife #3 the Holy Spirit probably took leave of that guy. That’s the kind of guy Ellen White would have said “his prayers go no higher than the ceiling”
The term “televangelist” has almost universally negative overtones. Typical responses from people who are asked what they think about televangelists include the following: dishonest, greedy, materialistic, wasteful, and scandalous. The sight of televangelists wearing overly expensive clothing and jewelry, living in ridiculously expensive homes, and driving the most luxurious of cars, has caused many people to turn away from faith in Christ. Even non-Christians can discern that the teachings and lifestyles of most televangelists are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
There is nothing inherently wrong with televangelism. Television, just like any other medium (such as radio or the internet), is simply one way to get the gospel of Jesus Christ out into the world. There are many godly Christian leaders who use television to advance the gospel. Television is not the cause of the problems in televangelism. The problem in televangelism is the unbiblical beliefs of many televangelists. While television itself is not the problem, it does contribute to the problem in that it is far more difficult to discern a wolf in sheep’s clothing on a television screen than it is to discern such an individual through careful, in-person investigation. Television makes it easier for a facade of godliness and life-changing ministry to be presented, when behind the scenes, all that is truly occurring is a fleecing of unsuspecting sheep.
The core cause of many televangelist scandals is the belief commonly known as the health-wealth gospel. Televangelists are the primary propagators of the idea that it is always God’s will for all Christians to be perfectly healthy and financially wealthy. The essential message of the health-wealth gospel is that if you give money, God is obligated to bless you with health and wealth. If you give money, but are not blessed with health and wealth, you either did not give enough money, or do not have enough faith to truly receive the blessing. In this, health-wealth televangelists encourage people to give large sums of money, while preemptively explaining why the people are not blessed with health and wealth as they were promised.
The Bible does not teach that we should give SO THAT we will be blessed. The Bible teaches that we should give because we love God and want to thank Him for what He has given us. Our motive for giving should not be so that God will bless us in return. Rather, our motive for giving should be to glorify God and to share the blessings He has given, thereby further expanding His kingdom and promoting the message of the gospel. The message, focus, and motive of the health-wealth televangelists are clearly unbiblical.
"and now there’s too much power and too much money.”
BINGO! Next, add a huge dose of no (most likely) outside auditing and lack of transparency/accountability in a religious non-profit and you have created this recipe for disaster. While working for “The Lord”…we may not have a lot of personal money but we can certainly have a lot of power and influence.
Most of these players in this telenovela would have never had the opportunity or exposure that they have had in the “outside” world…but here they are squabbling and fighting to retain the control and acclaim that 3ABN has afforded them. Though there may be fault to spread around- Danny Shelton appears to be the most greedy and disingenuous of them all (once again).
The ASI people would, of course, be on the side of Danny and friends.
Too much invested not to do otherwise.
[through the years I have known quite a number of ASI members so
not trying to bad-mouth them. Just facts.]
Adventists have their own version of this concept. When someone would leave the SDA church, or stop keeping Sabbath, it was (many times) spoken of in tones of doom, or that God wouldn’t bless them, or if some tragedy happened in their life, it was spoken of as a punishment for leaving or not keeping the Sabbath. Then there were the stories of someone joining the SDA church (which mainly meant they were keeping the Sabbath), and they were blessed with their business succeeding or doing better than before. The latter was usually presented in stories from the pulpit, or in the Review.
So, there is that similar streak of prosperity gospel in the SDA church too.
