Word: ike
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Blessing Plan. Ike has done it again: taken in another $20,000 or so to stoke up his flourishing evangelistic operation. He claims 1,400,000 followers, to whom he sends a weekly newsletter and a full-color monthly magazine relentlessly pitching his "Blessing Plan" ("Pledge at least $100!"). He does radio broadcasts on 80 American stations and occasional television specials. Almost every week he conducts live services somewhere...
...trying to make good in the world of black storefront religion in Boston and New York. But in 1965, he adopted the style that was to set him apart. Instead of preaching humility and meekness, he began to preach a pride bordering on arrogance. "Say it after me," Ike tells his listeners. "All that God is, I am." He also stopped talking about hell. "I discovered after analyzing the whole thing that people are already in hell. They want some practical ways of getting out." So Ike invented the money rake: "The money rake is your good, positive belief about...
...began telling his congregations: "Don't be a hypocrite about money. Say, 'I like money. Money is not sinful in its right place. I bless the idea of money in my mind.' " So many people liked this approach that by 1966 Ike was able to buy a $600,000, block-sized movie theater in Manhattan's Washington Heights. The theater became the headquarters for his new United Church and Science of Living Institute. Now Ike's ads pointedly trumpet that his church "is NOT located in Harlem...
...home or on the road, Ike hammers on his favorite theme. At a service in Houston's Convention Center recently, Ike heard a man testify that he had participated in Ike's giving plan and developed the right idea about money. In return, the man prospered sufficiently to get a new house and "a Cadillac car . . . I have the Cadillac car home right now . . . parked right outside." The audience of 5,000 cheered, and Ike breathed, "That's . . . style. Enjoy your new brick home and ride your Cadillac!" Over the amens and right ons from the audience...
...Beyond Ike's message of the power-of-positive-greed is the ego-building, instant-divinity trip he offers his followers-far from the traditional admonitions to repentance. "The Bible says, 'with God all things are possible,'" he explains. "It also says 'all things are possible to one who believes.' Therefore the person who believes in himself is God." No soul-saving nonsense for Ike. "One thing even Jesus didn't do," he preaches, "he didn't save the world." As for prayer, Ike issues a warning: "When you kneel down to pray...